Monday 18 February 2008

Shankar Jaikishan: Awara (1951/1975)

Awara

Much as I enjoy Bollywood soundtracks, I don't often find myself wanting to see the films they're taken from. 'Awara' [review] [2] is an exception... looking at some of the YouTube clips, plus this one I found via Parties, Sarees and Melodies (where the album was posted some time ago), I'm really taken in by the art direction and b/w cinematography. So must buy, probably.

Anyway, the score: Shankar Jaikishan's second ever, and it's excellent. Some of it possessing a manic, tribal quality, like 'Title Music' and 'Naiya Teri Manjhdhar'; plenty of really lovely, atmospheric goings-on ('Hanste Bhi Rahe Rote Bhi Rahe', 'Ab Raat Guzarne Wali Hai' and 'Dam Bhar Jo Udhar Minh Phere'); an ace cabarat number in 'Ek Do Teen', sung by Shamshad Begum and performed by Cuckoo in the film... and the best saved for last, with the final two tracks constituting a miniature suite of sorts (soundtracking a dream sequence I think)... 'Tere Bina Aag Yeh Chandni' is stunning; orchestra in high drama mode, horror effects, pounding drums, a delicious melody... top notch Hindi exotica.

A splendid album. (Sorry about the noise on track 1; the rest is OK though.)

Track listing:
1. Title Music
2. Mohd. Rafi & Chorus: Naiya Teri Manjhdhar
3. Shamshad Begum: Ek Do Teen
4. Lata Mangeshkar: Jab Se Balam Ghar Aae
5. Mukesh: Hanste Bhi Rahe Rote Bhi Rahe
6. Lata Mangeshkar: Ab Raat Guzarne Wali Hai
7. Mukesh: Awaara Hoon
8. Lata Mangeshkar,& Mukesh: Dam Bhar Jo Udhar Minh Phere
9. Lata Mangeshkar: Ek Bewafa Se Pyar Kiya
10. Lata Mangeshkar, Manna Dey & Chorus: Tere Bina Aag Yeh Chandni
11. Lata Mangeshkar & Chorus: Ghar Aaya Mera Pardesi

9 comments:

  1. Yippie! love your posts, especially the ones you're actually enthusiastic about!

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  2. Hi PC ji
    Thanks again for this nice link. Awara was a landmark movie. IT was first time that Hindi film music went across the world and was a huge craze. Shankar jaikishan were responsible for this. Even now people in Eastern europe , china, etc remember Songs of Awara.

    SJ's earlier movie Barsaat was a huge hit. musically records had to reprinted due to huge demand. and then this movie turned out to be Biggest grosser of the Decade !

    PC I will send you one song similar to " jaan pehchaan ho".

    Thanks for doing so much efforts and for sharing all these rare albums !

    Regards

    a HFM fan

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  3. thanks man. "Dam Bhar Jo Udhar Minh Phere" is one of my favorite songs of all time. You're the best.

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  4. As shankar jaikishan had given tunes to all the leading singers of bollywood films, including Mukesh, Manna Dey, Kishore, Talat, Hemant Kumar, Mahendra Kapoor,

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  5. Thanks for the tunes! This stuff is fairly new to me so I'm excited to be educated.

    Thanks!

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  6. One of the great music blogs. Really. Not the usual crap of a bunch of beat-heads frantically trying to outdo one another with ever more obscure rarities, most of which are justifiably rare, since they were so tepid nobody bought them when they originally came out. I love your premise--here's a box of records, I'm going to put them up, some are great, some suck. Thank you.

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  7. Thanks again, I have been waiting to come across this OST to this fine, amazing film - my introduction to Hindi film, via 3 Mustaphas 3's cover of Awara Hoon.

    I often point out to my fellow westerners that claim they don't LIKE "Bollywood" that they are missing quite a few great films from the golden age, from before when the genre really changed and became so formulaic...

    This is usually the film that I point them to.

    Stivji

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  8. Thanks for this beautiful upload. bu I'm not able to download it. as all server either stopped sharing or blocked. can u make it available on mediafire???

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