Yesterday’s Melodies Today’s Memories

Book excerpt: Yesterday’s Melodies Todays Memories is a rare collection of profiles of all important music-makers of the Hindi Film Industry between 1931 and 1970. It not only gives a biographical background of each music artiste, but it goes further to interview many of the surviving giants and completes the task by listing some of the best songs with which that person is associated. Here are singers that include the whole gamut from KL Saigal to Asha Bhosle, lyricists that include Sahir and Gulzar, music composers from Naushad to RD Burman, artistes that were part-time singers and full time actors like Ashok Kumar, melody queens like Noor Jahan and Lata Mangeshkar, gentlemen lyricists like Prem Dhawan and gentlemen singers like Manna Dey, mischief-makers like Kishore Kumar and rebels without pause like OP Nayyar and Majrooh Sultanpuri. In fact, this book is a house in which all these great talents live happily, each in a separate room, given space for self-expression. The serious research that has gone into this book is evident as you move from one chapter to another, opening layers after layers presented non-seriously. Over 100 music makers are presented this way and many more in a huge single chapter.