Music
director Naushad Ali dead
Mumbai:
Veteran music director Naushad Ali died at Nanawati
hospital here today. According to sources, 87-year old Naushad
was suffering from cardiac problems for the last few years.
Naushad was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1981 for
his lifetime contribution to Indian cinema. Besides, he
had been also honoured with thePadmabhushan and Sangeet
Academy awards.
Born on December 25, 1919, Naushad Ali was one of the foremost
music composers of Bollywood. Since early childhood in Lucknow
he was an avid listener of live orchestras accompanying
silent films. He studied under Ustad Ghurbat Ali, Ustad
Yusuf Ali and Ustad Babban Saheb. Before coming to Bombay,
he repaired harmoniums and composed for amateur theatricals
such as the Windsor Music Entertainers. He moved to Bombay
in the late 1930s to try his luck as a musician but had
to really struggle and saw days of acute deprivation. He
even had to spend nights on the footpath before he worked
as a pianist in composer Mushtaq Hussain's orchestra. He
joined music director Khemchand Prakash, whom he considers
his teacher, as his assistant. Prem Nagar (1940) was Naushad's
first Independent break but he first got noticed with Sharda
(1942) wherein 13-year-old Suraiya did the playback for
heroine Mehtab. It was the film "Rattan" (1944) that took
Naushad right to the top and enabled him to charge Rs 25,000
a film then. Ankhiyaan Milake and Sawan ke Badalon became
the most popular songs of the day. After initial struggle,
he enjoyed great success in the 1940s as a music director.
Naushad
introduced Bollywood Nightingale Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammad
Rafi to playback singing. Naushad was one of the first to
introduce sound mixing and the separate recording of voice
and music tracks in playback singing. Late in his career,
Naushad lamented upon the decreasing use of Hindustani genre
and so he dreamt of starting a music school which teaches
that genre. He was successful in bringing up the school
and breeding young talent in that school. He had composed
music for at least 67 films. His major hits include Mughal-e-Azam,
Mother India, Baiju Bawra and Pakeezah besides Rattan, Anmol
Ghadi, Shahjehan, Dard, Mela, Andaaz, Dillagi, Dulari, Babul,
Deedaar, Jadoo, Shabab, Udan Khatola, Ganga Jamuna, Mere
Mehboob and Ram Aur Shyam. Songs for his music have been
mostly penned down by Shakeel Badayuni. Naushad also had
completed Pakeezah (1972) after Ghulam Mohammed's death.
His last music composition was for the movie Taj Mahal-An
Eternal Love Story, by Akbar Khan in 2005.
The following are some of the famous movies for which the
late music director scored many of Bollywood's famous songs
1. Rattan (1944) 2. Anmol Ghadi (1946) 3. Shahjehan (1946)
4. Dard (1947) 5. Mela (1948) 6. Andaaz (1949) 7. Dillagi
(1949) 8. Dulari (1949) 9. Babul (1950) 10. Deedaar (1951)
11. Jadoo (1951) 12. Baiju Bawra (1952) 13. Shabab (1954)
14. Udan Khatola (1955) 15. Mother India (1957) 16. Mughal-e-Azam
(1960) 17. Ganga Jamuna (1961) 18. Mere Mehboob (1963) 19.
Ram Aur Shyam (1967) 20. Pakeezah (1972)
He also had the singular honour of having introduced for
the first time the voice of India's eight top singers of
yesteryears like Suraiya, Umadevi, Muhammad Rafi and Mahendra
Kapoor and melody queen Lata Mangeshkar. .
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