Salil Chowdhury and Lata.
Salil Chowdhury had made his major experiments in bollywood films with the help of Lata. He gave the solo song “jago mohan pyare” in Jagte Raho, in 1956, where there was chorus effect with the solo song. As it was film related to social justice produced by Raj Kapoor, there were hardly major sequences for songs, otherwise he would have given more songs to Lata.
In Madhumati, in 1958, Bimal Roy gave scope to Salil Chowdhury to compose a number of songs as it involved the romantic story between Dilip Kumar and Vaijayantimala. All the songs composed by Salil Chowdhury and sung by Lata including “aaja re pardesi”, “dil tarap tarap ke keh raha hai aa bhi ja”, “daiyare daiyare jangal papi bichua”, were big hits. Salil Chowdhury also won the filmfare award for the best composer in that year.
In Maya, Salil Choudhury’s composition for Lata and Rafi titled “tasveer teri dil me” became big hit. It was picturised on Mala Sinha and Dev Anand. Also the songs composed by Salil Choudhury in other films like “na jiya lage na’ sung by Lata was successful.
Salil Choudhury gave successful songs to Lata in the films Parakh, Half Ticket, Anand, etc. Also he gave excellent songs to Lata in Bengali films like “hai hai pran jaye” in Marjina Abdulla, “biswapita tumi he prabhu” in Sister, etc. Lata’s major basic discs in Bengali include songs composed by Salil Choudhury, a number of them were used for bollywood films as well.
The major basic discs in Bengali composed by Salil Choudhury for Lata include “saat bhai champa”, “aakash pradeep jale”, “ na mono lagena”, “aaj noi gungun gunjan preme”, “ore mono pakhi”, etc.
Salil Choudhury had gone abroad a number of times and most of his compositions had western influence including songs from Russia, Hungary, Poland, etc. He used the western touch and mixed it with the eastern classical and folk music and created history both in bollywood films and Bengali films. If 50 best songs of Lata are selected obviously 5 compositions of Salil Choudhury will stand tall among other compositions. The songs should be restored for immense musical value.
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