FOREVER MOHD RAFI:
ARTICLES BY NASIR WHO IS TODAY CONSIDERED AN AUTHORITY ON THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MOHD RAFI:
With special reference to the 1950's and 1960's.
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Rafi Sahaab is generally credited with having given us about 27,000 songs in his career. The great forte of Mohammad Rafi Sahaab was that he moved with the times. In this process, he himself brought about a positive change in the playback singing, widening the horizon for the music directors, and was responsible for the liberation of filmy music that had become type-cast and monotonous to say the least. By the time we come to the year 1960, we find that Rafi Sahaab had no more musical territories to conquer. As Lata Mangeshkar was to observe much later: "The void that was created by K.L. Saigal had been filled". But another sign of a great playback singer is not to rest on his laurels. But that story belongs to the Sixties.We saw the tremendous impact of Rafi Sahaab on the film music in the Fifties. However, it should not be in the least imagined that it was a smooth sailing for him. Of course he sang duets with all the female singers of the Fifties, including Shamshad Begum whom Asha Bhonsle had once called "Punjab Ka Jaadu," Lata and Usha Mangeshkar, Asha Bhonsle, Raj Kumari, Ameer Bai, Madhubala Jhaveri, Meena Kapoor, Mubarak Begum, and others. But he faced the toughest of competition from the other male singers such as Talat Mehmood, Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey, Hemant Kumar, C.Ramchandra and Mukesh. Naushad's home production, Babul, (1950) had Talat Mehmood's number for Dilip Kumar. Rafi Sahaab figured just nominally in the background voice singing: DUUR JAANA DUUR HAI...in the Talat-Shamshad duet: NADI KINAARAY PAAS HAMAARAY SHAAMD SUHAANI AAYI. In fact, by the time we approach 1960, Mukesh had won the 1959 Film Fare best singer award for his SABB KUCHH SEEKHA HAMMNAY in Anari. At the same time it also goes to the credit of Rafi Sahaab that he was called upon to render playback singing for established singer such as Talat Mehmood in Lala Rukh: HAI KALI KALI KE LABB PAR in a subdued voice to sound like Talat; and for Kishore Kumar in Baghi Shehzada, Ragini and Shararat. The songs in Raagini: MANN MORA BAAWRA, in Shararat: AJAB HAI DAASTAA.N TERI AY ZINDAGI; were great hits. O.P. Nayyar's decision to make Rafi Sahaab sing the classical song Mann Mora Baawra was upheld by Ashok Kumar who was the producer of Ragini. Shankar-Jaikishen too for their Shararat song needed Rafi Sahaab for his classical background and the phenomenal range of voice. Rafi Sahaab's duet with Asha Bhonsle was lip-synched by both Bhagwan and Kishore Kumar in HAMEN BHAYY DARR HAI in the 1956 flick, Bhagam Bhag which had lilting duets of these male singers.
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