The instances recalled today are the curious cases of change in the singers of legendary songs. Now, such changes may take place due to various reasons, but the interesting point here is that the singers were changed after the recording was done. It happens sometimes that the music director , during rehearsal, doesn't get the effect required and the singer is changed to a more suitable incumbent. But doing so after recording does not happen normally. Hence,legendary !
The first instance I recall is said to have happened during the making of the 1952 Bimal Roy film Naukri.
Since Kishore Kumar was the hero of the film, the singer-actor justly assumed that he would sing his own songs. But Salil Chowdhury, the formidable music director from Bengall had sought Hemant Kumar’s vocals and had a portion recorded also. Kishore rushed to Chowdhury’s music room at Mohan Studios, Andheri, only to be told: “But I have never heard you before… Not one song of yours did I hear in Calcutta.”
Kishore, pursuing his case, later went to Chowdhury with records of two of his best songs — “Marne kee duaaen kyun maangoon” (Ziddi, 1948) and “Jagmag jagmag kartaa niklaa” (Rimjhim, 1949). Chowdhury dismissed both as “laboured”. It was only after Bimal Roy put in a word that Chowdhury relented, though under protest
Kishore Kumar justified the director’s trust by infusing the simple yet touching lyrics with sincerity. Kishore kumar went on to sing 24 more songs for Salil da in all the four decades from 50s to 80s.
And here is the sad version of the song, Salil Chaudhary recorded in the voice of Hemant Kumar !
Two interesting events happened during the making of the music of the film Aadmi (1968) , whose composer was Naushad. One song which was a solo, 'Na aadmi ka koi bharosa' was to be sung by Mohammad Rafi. The recording was held up because of Rafi's trip abroad and Naushad was forced to record the song in the voice of Mahendra Kapoor. But before the picturization , Rafi came back . Naushad changed the tune and recorded the song in the voice of Rafi.
Then there was a duet , " Kisi haseen aaj baharon ki raat hai", in which both Dilip Kumar and Manoj Kumar were present and Naushad had already recorded the song in the voices of Rafi ( for Dilip) and Talat Mehmood( for Manoj Kumar) and all was well.
However,after the solo song incident, Manoj Kumar ( whose ghost voice by now was Mahendra : remember 1967 film Upkar's Mere desh ki dharti ) insisted that the Talat portion in the duet be re-recorded by Mahendra. Since Mahendra Kapoor had no other song planned in the film, the assertions by Manoj Kumar were taken seriously.
When it was decided that the song will be re-recorded , Mahendra Kapoor said he couldn’t do it as he had idolised Talat saab. As told by Rohan Kapoor, his son, Mahendra Kapoor met Talat and shared the decision. “Talat saab, magnanimous as he was, said, ‘You’re like my son. If you don’t sing it, someone else will. So it was with Talat saab’s blessings and consent that Mahendra Kapoor sang the song". The record , which already had been released , only contains the Rafi - Talat duet whereas the film has the Rafi - Mahendra Kapoor version.
Here are the two versions, one after the other.
While switching the singers had happened in the 50s on the request of the director and in the 60s, due to the insistence of a star, in the 70s, this happened because of a completely different reason !
HMV had been the giant record company since times immemorial in India and had the copyrights of almost all the songs in Hindi films. During the late 1960’s The Gramophone Company of India, Ltd. was challenged in the market for Indian repertoire by the formation of Polydor India, Ltd., who had a disc pressing plant at Kandivlee, north of Bombay. Thus developed a market struggle between the ‘Gramophone’ and ‘Polydor’ companies in India for the rights to songs from the films being produced by numerous motion picture producers in India.
In the early 70s, film producers started to shift to Polydor and they notched up important projects , some of whom proved to be chartbusters, thanks to the composers of the films. The Train, Sachcha Jhootha, Johny Mera Naam, jawani Diwani are some of Polydor's early successes. In fact, if you listen to SAREGAMA ( the new avatar of HMV) Geetmala Ki chhaon mein, a 2010 series by Ameen Sayani based on Binaca Geet Mala Hit Parade , the songs which were recorded by Polydor are not played and only mentioned by sayani , as HMV does not have a copy right.
Back to 70s.
The success of the films mentioned above forced the big company to devise a strategy to counter the rapidly rising competitor. HMV exploited the lax Copyright Act 1957(section 52) , which permitted cover versions just by filing a notice of intent and paying nominal royalty, without the necessity of seeking permission, to make cover versions of the music of these films. HMV employed new siingers ( Ambar Kumar, Krishna Kalle etc.) to sing these re-recorded songs and sold the LPs. Gullible fans bought them thinking they are original and HMV raked in money even from the recordings made by their competitiors.
The cover version LP
The Original LP
Leaving you with one such recording, after which the original song from Johny Mera Naam is also presented in the voices of Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar, composed by Kalyanji anandji.
The cover version
The original
Years later , Gulshan Kumar ( for T-series) paid HMV back in its own coin when he made a flourishing empire whose foundation was an array of cover versions by up-and-coming singers !
Then there was a duet , " Kisi haseen aaj baharon ki raat hai", in which both Dilip Kumar and Manoj Kumar were present and Naushad had already recorded the song in the voices of Rafi ( for Dilip) and Talat Mehmood( for Manoj Kumar) and all was well.
However,after the solo song incident, Manoj Kumar ( whose ghost voice by now was Mahendra : remember 1967 film Upkar's Mere desh ki dharti ) insisted that the Talat portion in the duet be re-recorded by Mahendra. Since Mahendra Kapoor had no other song planned in the film, the assertions by Manoj Kumar were taken seriously.
When it was decided that the song will be re-recorded , Mahendra Kapoor said he couldn’t do it as he had idolised Talat saab. As told by Rohan Kapoor, his son, Mahendra Kapoor met Talat and shared the decision. “Talat saab, magnanimous as he was, said, ‘You’re like my son. If you don’t sing it, someone else will. So it was with Talat saab’s blessings and consent that Mahendra Kapoor sang the song". The record , which already had been released , only contains the Rafi - Talat duet whereas the film has the Rafi - Mahendra Kapoor version.
Here are the two versions, one after the other.
HMV had been the giant record company since times immemorial in India and had the copyrights of almost all the songs in Hindi films. During the late 1960’s The Gramophone Company of India, Ltd. was challenged in the market for Indian repertoire by the formation of Polydor India, Ltd., who had a disc pressing plant at Kandivlee, north of Bombay. Thus developed a market struggle between the ‘Gramophone’ and ‘Polydor’ companies in India for the rights to songs from the films being produced by numerous motion picture producers in India.
In the early 70s, film producers started to shift to Polydor and they notched up important projects , some of whom proved to be chartbusters, thanks to the composers of the films. The Train, Sachcha Jhootha, Johny Mera Naam, jawani Diwani are some of Polydor's early successes. In fact, if you listen to SAREGAMA ( the new avatar of HMV) Geetmala Ki chhaon mein, a 2010 series by Ameen Sayani based on Binaca Geet Mala Hit Parade , the songs which were recorded by Polydor are not played and only mentioned by sayani , as HMV does not have a copy right.
Back to 70s.
The success of the films mentioned above forced the big company to devise a strategy to counter the rapidly rising competitor. HMV exploited the lax Copyright Act 1957(section 52) , which permitted cover versions just by filing a notice of intent and paying nominal royalty, without the necessity of seeking permission, to make cover versions of the music of these films. HMV employed new siingers ( Ambar Kumar, Krishna Kalle etc.) to sing these re-recorded songs and sold the LPs. Gullible fans bought them thinking they are original and HMV raked in money even from the recordings made by their competitiors.
The cover version LP
The Original LP
Leaving you with one such recording, after which the original song from Johny Mera Naam is also presented in the voices of Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar, composed by Kalyanji anandji.
The cover version
The original
Years later , Gulshan Kumar ( for T-series) paid HMV back in its own coin when he made a flourishing empire whose foundation was an array of cover versions by up-and-coming singers !
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