Back to Rafi after a break
But when Kumar Sanu as a Kishore clone proved a sensation in 1990, it was a short reprise of Aradhana, as the two “Rafi-ians” lost ground rapidly. Sanu was sharing the Kishore legacy with Abhijeet, Vinod Rathod and Babul Supriyo. In this phase, none of the assorted new Rafi naqals who tried to make their marks - Debashish Dasgupta, Vipin Sachdeva and Mangal Singh - could make it.
But Rafi was so synonymous with Hindi film music that Udit Narayan, a singer with an original voice and style who emulated Rafi’s approach to playback vis-à-vis singing technique, shot past Sanu in 1995, indicating conclusively that short breaks like these reaffirmed the fact that the staple diet could only be Rafi!
Udit’s refined style revived the Rafi culture again in a fresh, original packaging, and the singer reigned till the early millennium when Sonu Niigaam, also a Rafi follower and (out of compulsion) an early clone of Rafi who had done cover version albums of Rafi’s songs for T-Series, overtook Udit! And by the time this happened, all the Kishore followers were on the fadeout run!
Though very choosy today, Sonu is the most respected of the existing big names in playback. Trained classically like Udit, he is still the first choice for the song with depth, come Paheli, Jaan-E-Mann or Parineeta. But even others like Roopkumar Rathod, Sukhwinder Singh and Javed Ali are also treading the Rafi path.
The voice for all time
Sonu Niigaam and Udit Narayan, rightly enough, can be considered the principal beacons of what can be termed the Mohammed Rafi School Of Playback Singing. These trained singers have walked the tightrope between following Rafi’s versatile and unaffected style of singing without imitating the master singer. Till the mid-millennium, composers as varied as Rajesh Roshan, Anu Malik, Nadeem-Shravan, Anand-Milind and Jatin-Lalit and many more music makers gave us innumerable delights that suggested Rafi, recalled Rafi or craved for Rafi in the sense that they seemed to be made for him. What else were scores like Rajesh Roshan’s Koi…Mil Gaya, Anu Malik’s Border and Refugee, Jatin-Lalit’s Sangharsh, Nadeem-Shravan’s Tumse Accha Kaun Hai and Anand-Milind’s Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and even Ismail Darbar’s Deewangee, Sajid-Wajid’s Kya Yehi Pyaar Hai and Mujhse Shaadi Karogi and Sandesh Shandilya’s Socha Na Tha? And who other than Rafi could be conceived as inspiration for hit songs like Rajesh Roshan’s Ghar se nikalti hi (Papa Kehte Hain), Anu Malik’s title-track from Main Hoon Na or Pritam’s Falak dekhoon (Garam Masala)?
And that is why Rafi is supremely relevant even today. If ever some technology is developed whereby the exact voice of a past artiste can be put on a modern tune, the voice of Mohammed Rafi will dominate as much as it did from the late ’40s to the early ’80s!
And the ground reality is strong enough to motivate thought in that direction. In the last few years alone, dozens of songs across various composers seem tailor-made for Rafi, or give reasonable, if not certain, grounds to suggest that Rafi seems to loom large even in the psyche of the current generation of composers.
So it is a subconscious desire to work with Rafi that makes a Pritam, as late as in fusion-infested 2010, compose the intense Phir mujhe dil beqaraar (Toh Baat Pakki)? What was A.R.Rahman thinking of when he made the almost Naushad-ian Qismat se tum humse mile ho in Pukar and the haunting Do qadam in Meenaxi - A Tale Of Four Cities besides the songs of Jodhaa Akbar like Kehne ko jashn-e-bahaaraa hai? Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s Tanhayee (Dil Chahta Hai) and Kal Ho Naa Ho’s title-track and even Himesh Reshammiya’s Apne to apne hote hain (Apne) all seem in Rafi terrain, whether by intent or default does not matter.
Clearly, Rafi remains perennial in more than just the musical legacy he has left behind. As KK puts it succinctly, “I loved the Mohammed Rafi-like vibe of Dil kyun yeh mera in Kites!”
Read More :
http://www.screenindia.com/news/that-forever-voice/652432/
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