Less talked about singers - Part 1

Manhar Udhas

The first time I heard
Manhar was way back in College. Somebody had a record Mukesh ki Yadein and I saw that the collection in that record was superb. It had all the popular hits. After a few spins, I could make out that it was not Mukesh. Checked the cover carefully, somewhere in the corner of the LP was the statement – Sung by Manhar …That was the first time I heard one of these re-sung records…

The next I heard of Manhar was when the Abhiman EP came out – Loote Koi man ke nazar banke mera saathi – what a great song…He followed on in Qurbani with ‘Hum tumhen chaahate he’….Some more good hits followed, one I recall was the Hero song Tu meri janoo hai. I hear he is active and does Gujarati Ghazals etc these days…

Shailendra Singh

This chap just burst into the music scene with his ‘Bobby’ songs; even today ‘Mein shayar to nahin’ is a song that still enthrals the listener. But it was not to be; after a few Rishi kapoor movies and some years of struggling (and an aborted attempt at acting) in the Bollywood rat race, he quietly faded away.

A personal favourite after Mein Shayer is a Shailendra Lata duet – Dariya cha raja from Do Jasoos.

I tried to find out what happened to him post Bobby, Rafoo chakkar….but there are hardly anything written on this guy – I was and still am surprised!!
There are mentions that he came on a
Harmony TV program recently and goofed up the song completely…Ah well, must have been a bad day for him!!

‘Hum tum’ has Rishi kapoor humming the Bobby song; rumour mills state that Shailendra Singh probably re-sang the clip.


Runa Laila

Sultana Chowdhry aka Runa Laila sang probably a handful of Hindi songs, but apparently has over 5000 songs to her credit in 17 languages, did you know that? I used to think that she was born Bangla, but she is Karachi born and stepped into the limelight when her sister developed a sore throat prior to a stage show. Well she purportedly has a Guinness book record for the max songs recorded in a day – at Bombay!! And well, she even had
a successful stage show in Chennai!!!

I can still hum those famous Hindi songs of hers -

Do diwane shahar mein & Tumhe ho na ho mujhko to…from Gharaonda
Ek se badhkar ek zaman he donom anek….title song




Part 2 to cover Bhupinder Singh, Nazia Hassan & Hemlata
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2 comments:

indianadoc said...

sometimes I feel singing is not all about talent...it is a combination of talent,opportunity and a lot of luck...Hmm Lady luck is not so generous with every body...it is more sad when even the nasal crooners of the modern day filmi music hog the limelight these singers never really got the attention they deserved...BTW a very happy onam to u and u'r family...so sadya evideyethi?

Maddy said...

yes, u are very right. but one lady who hit the right notes and came up through the rank & file is Shreya Ghoshal. She had the luck & the voice!! we saw her the other day at birmingahm with Adnan.

sadya velliyazchakkaki..
madam is well into planning..