Wednesday 28 March 2007

Salil Chowdhury: Mere Bhaiya / Usha Khanna: Honeymoon (1972)

Mere Bhaiya/Honeymoon

This one came out of left field: Neither Salil Chowdhury nor Usha Khanna have ever struck me as the most exciting of Bollywood composers (although rumour has it that the latter made some good ones); then I stumbled over this two-fer real cheap, figured I'd have a listen... and guess what? It's excellent! It's an unassuming sleeve (unassuming? downright awful more like it), but inside lie a couple of ace songs.

The 'Mere Bhaiya' tracks are mostly traditional, but of the sort I like... 'Pyas Liye Manwa' for instance, very nice. 'Chanchal Man Par Chhaye' also has a certain charm to it, even though Chowdhury's attempt at rock 'n' roll isn't on par with, say Shankar Jaikishan at their best. It's the 'Honeymoon' side however that's the main point of interest, with two killer tunes included: 'Jeevan Hai Ek Sapna' gallops off like a Morricone western thing (whistling, guitar twangs and whip cracks) and has a great soaring melody, while 'Mere Pyase Man Ki Bahar' begins really lovely with the two singers calling to each other, then a cool shuffling beat starts up, and then the main melody which reminds me a bit of Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra's 'Summer Wine' - something that can only be a plus (that might be just me though), absolutely great stuff!

Yup, I really need to check up on Usha Khanna a bit more.

Track listing (1-4: Mera Bhaiya, 5-8: Honeymoon):
1. Lata Mangeshkar: Chhod Chali Ghar Tera
2. Lata Mangeshkar & Manna Dey: Marzi Hai Tumari
3. Lata Mangeshkar: Pyas Liye Manwa
4. Manna Dey: Chanchal Man Par Chhaye
5. Kishore Kumar & Asha Bhosle: Mere Pyase Man Ki Bahar
6. Mohd. Rafi: O Sathi, O Sathi, O
7. Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhosle & Chorus: Jeevan Hai Ek Sapna
8. Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhosle & Chorus: Do Dil Mile

21 comments:

  1. Once again awesome Thanks so much for these gems i too have a few bins of old Bolly Lp's no time to transpose just now so double thanks
    Record Brother

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  2. The file appears to be corrupt, tried downloading it twice :(

    Can you check it?

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  3. Just did... works fine here.
    ???
    PC x

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  4. I think the issue maybe for us window users only? My hunch is that windows does not like the forward slash. /

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  5. If you folks are seeing something like this when you try to extract with winzip in windows:
    http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/5168/extractql2.jpg

    Try this: right click on the downloaded zip file, open with winrar archiver. Then in the winrar window go to tools and choose repair archive, make sure "treat the corrupt archive as Zip" is selected and choose a location for it, hit ok and that should do the trick! You'll get another zip file that says rebuilt.merehoneymoon and now just extract that one regularly.

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  6. Bloody stupid Windows... virus prone, malware infested, rubbish system... can't even handle a forward slash... tsk!

    ;-)

    Anyway, I've renamed and re-uploaded the file, no slashes on this one, hopefully it'll work better.

    PC x

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  7. One of my favourites Bollywood soundtrack is a Usha Khanna one.


    "Dil dekhe dekho" from the 50's
    A movie with Shammy kapoor.

    Check that one, it's great.

    Usha Kahnna is a woman.

    Yassine
    aka
    Dj Alfred Hitchcock magazine
    chocomix@laposte.net

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  8. Indeed she is... I think the only female music director from that era that I'm aware of.
    PC x

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  9. I am in love with track 2, thanks for a new favorite PC! It's all about the lyrics on that one for me. So nice of you to re-up. :)

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  10. Love the lilting music of Salil C and this almost unheard album is such a delight! Thank you soooo much. I like Usha Khanna a lot too .. Shabnam, Nishaan, Aao Pyar Karein... some awesome numbers there.

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  11. Re Up - http://rapidshare.com/files/54475756/merehoneymoon.zip.html

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  12. thanks for reupping

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  13. Hey PC,

    If you don't mind, can you please re-up 'Honeymoon' ?.

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  14. Doesn't the Rapidshare link work?
    PC x

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  15. Hey PC,

    The Rapidshare link wasn't working for me originally, which is why I asked you, but I finally was able to download it :).

    Thanks for the songs !...Honeymoon's an excellent album.

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  16. Thanks Tala as well for the re-up !

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  17. The rapidshare link is no longer active. Can anyone re-up please?

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  18. Rapidshare link is not working. Can u please repost the correct link please

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  19. PC can you please re-post honeymoon link?

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  20. Expired links won't be renewed, sorry.

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  21. I Realize how much work you made and how much it represents to maintain everything working, but...

    Please, it's the only broken link (the only one without linx to sharebee indeed) on your blog, why don't repair it ?

    Thank's a lot for everything, i discovered a new musical horizon.

    From Colombia

    D.

    ReplyDelete