FOREVER MOHD RAFI:
Mohammed Rafi montage
It was clear from the beginning that Rafi had a unique talent which distinguished him from the other playback singers of the era but it was only when he teamed up with the music composer Naushad – most notably in the 1952 classic film Baiju Bawra – that Rafi established himself as one of the greatest playback singers in Indian cinema.
Rafi revealed a golden voice of unrivaled tonal quality and range, which had the power to pitch lyrics from the lowest modulations to high soprano.
This incredible versatility of range soon attracted all the stars and, during the 1950s and 1960s – unquestionably the golden age of Hindi film music – Rafi became the voice of all the cinema greats, from Dilip Kumar and Guru Dutt, to Shammi Kapoor and Dharmendra.
Rafi proved his greatness further with an astonishing display of vocal pyrotechnics that used intonation and inflection to ensure no actor he lent his voice to ever sounded like the other.
But Rafi was more than just an outstanding Hindi playback singer. During his 40-year career he sang over 26,000 songs in all the national languages of India, achieving an unequaled level of success in many genres of Asian music, from ghazals and geets, to qawwalis and bhajans.