Kishore Kumar Tribute Pt. 1 (The 50's)

I still remember the first time I heard that golden voice - I was seven years old and the soundtrack for 'Amar Akbar Anthony' had just come out. The year was 1975 and I remember living in California when one of my parent's friends had brought over the LP of it. The songs were played so much that they became a part of my childhood memories and in turn Kishore Kumar became permanently ingrained into my psyche. I own virtually everything that he has ever sung and he is the one artist whom I never tire of listening to. I can name every actor that he has sung for and watched certain actor's movies just because I knew Kishore was that actor's preferred playback singer. I would sit through the opening credits of a movie and if I didn't see his name under 'Playback Singers' I would go back to what I was doing. I was a fan(atic) in every sense of the word. And of course when he passed away 20 years ago I stopped watching Bollywood movies altogether and missed out on the introductory movies of SRK, Aamir Khan, etc. I came back for a very unlikely movie but to this day I will gladly listen to Kishoreda over any other Bollywood singer.



Kishore never wanted to be an actor and came to Bombay at the age of 18 to strike it big as a singer. His older brother (Ashok Kumar) was the biggest actor of the day and since Kishore had no formal training no one would hire him as a singer. He turned to acting in desperation to keep from going home a failure but never gave up his dream. His hero was the legendary singer K.L. Saigal and Kishore imitated his style in his first few songs which were mostly forgettable. Finally S.D. Burman sat him down and gave him some advice at the behest of his brother Ashok. He said that while his voice did have potential - if he wanted to be remembered he had to sing and find a style that was his, not someone else's. His career began to take off once he took that advice to heart and he churned out hit after hit - both as an actor and a singer. One of his earliest successes was in the movie 'Paying Guest' with the song Mana Janab Se Pukar in 1957 starring Dev Anand (Kishore sang for movies starring only himself & Devsaab back then). Another one of his earliest & biggest hits was the title song from 'Jhumroo' titled Main Hoon Jhumroo which is memorable for Kishore's trademark yodeling. It was during this decade that he married Madhubala (his second of four wives) and made a few movies with her as well, the best being 'Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi' which is special enough to get it's own write up one of these days.

Next week - Kishore's success as a singer flames out as his acting roles dry up in the 1960's. His triumphant return to the top of the charts in 1969 helped to propel a little known actor into superstardom with just one movie...