The 1960's were not kind to Kishore Kumar. Many of the movies he was acting in flopped at the box office, his marriage to his first wife ended in divorce in 1958 and his songs were just not getting the airplay they had been when he first broke into the business. While he had the odd hit here and there ('Padosan' & 'Jewel Thief') for the most part it seemed that Bollywood had grown tired of Kishore and for all practical purposes his career had stalled. He remarried in 1960 to the luminous Madhubala but the marriage was doomed from the start. Madhubala secretly pined for Dilip Kumar who did indeed love her back - but Dilip's father forbade the two from getting married as he did not want his son marrying an actress (which he did anyway with Saira Banu). Madhubala passed away in 1969 while in Kishore's arms - she had loved him during their time together but was never in love with him. 1969 would prove a watershed year in Kishore's life both personally and professionally...
S.D. Burman had already started recording the songs for 'Aradhana' and used Mohammed Rafi's voice for the first two when he became very ill and was hospitalized. His son R.D. Burman was responsible for finishing the soundtrack and although relatively new to Bollywood, he had always been enamored with Kishore's voice. R.D. broke tradition and recorded the remainder of the songs with Kishore in studio convinced that he would be able to hit the nuances of the songs better than Rafi. 'Aradhana' became a blockbuster hit and that one movie changed the entire landscape of Bollywood for years to come. Rajesh Khanna became the biggest movie star of the day and no one, not Raj Kapoor before him or Amitabh Bachchan after, could match the way he just owned the silver screen for the next five years. Kishore fared even better, after the success of 'Aradhana' he became the most sought after singer in Bollywood until he passed away and had few if any peers to his craft.
The two selections for today are from 'Aradhana' with the first one being Kora Kagaz a spellbinding duet by Kishore & Lata (it was also the song to which Nilong & I walked into our wedding reception) - see the video above. The second song is how audiences were first introduced to Sharmila Tagore's character and became the signature song for the film, Mere Sapno Ki Rani.
2 comments:
This is great - I am learning so much... I look forward to reading more. I love Kishore's voice in the songs from 'Aradhana', and never tire of listening to those songs, and I love many songs that he did in the 70s - but I am not very familiar with his older (60s and pre-60s) work - this post and the previous one have given me some clues as to where to start looking.
Glad to be of service! Kishore's voice is evergreen & I agree with you - some songs I do get tired of after repeated listenings but never his songs, ever. This little project has been so rewarding for me but the hardest part has clearly been picking which songs to upload. There are so many to choose from that the posts on the 70's & 80's will be the hardest ones yet - oh to suffer for one's art ;)
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