FOREVER MOHD RAFI:
RECORDING CAREER OF MOHD RAFI
Association with Naushad
As per Naushad, Rafi came to him with a letter of recommendation from Naushad's father. Rafi’s first song for Naushad was "Hindustan ke hum hain" ("We belong to Hindustan") for the film Pehle Aap in 1944. The first song for the duo was the soundtrack of the movie Anmol Ghadi (1946). Before Rafi, Naushad’s favorite singer was Talat Mahmood. Once Naushad found Talat smoking during a recording. He was annoyed and hired Rafi to sing all the songs of the movie Baiju Bawra.
Rafi's association with Naushad helped the former establish himself as one of the most prominent playback singers in Hindi Cinema. Songs from Baiju Bawra (1952) like "O duniya ke rakhwale" and "Man tarpat Hari darshan ko aaj" furthered Rafi's credentials. Rafi ended up singing a total of 149 songs (81 of them solo) for Naushad.
In the 1960 film Mughal-E-Azam, Mohammed Rafi sang the song "Ae Mohabbat Zindabad", composed by Naushad, with a chorus of 100 singers.