It is 25 years since Kishore Kumar died on the 13 October, 1987. Still you keep hearing his voice all over the media all the time. This is ample proof that this legendary singer is immortal.
Kishore Kumar was unique. He was a singer, music director, lyricist, director, producer, hero and comedian all rolled into one- probably the most versatile artiste Bollywood has seen.Yet, he was an also-ran in Hindi films till 1969 when composer S.D. Burman chose him to sing ‘Roop Tera’ and ‘Mere Sapnon Ki’ for Rajesh Khanna in ‘Aradhana’.
The rest is history. The film, a superhit catapulted Rajesh Khanna to superstardom and Kishore into the big league among singers. Soon Kishore captured the No. 1 spot, edging out the giant Mohammed Rafi. And he remained Bollywood’s playback king till his death.
Those who scoffed at him, calling him a mere yodeller, had to eat their words as he reeled off hit after hit in all genres, year after year. He had not learnt even the fundamentals of classical music.Yet he never went out of tune, thanks to his fabulous natural gifts.He had a voice of rare depth. Though he had idolised K.L.Saigal in his youth, Kishore developed his own style. His wordly-wise voice was unique. Kishore was an actor. So he could infuse the right shade of emotion into every song, whether it was a melody, a comic or pathos song, a dance number, a fast song, a romantic ditty or a semiclassical.
In the Fifties and Sixties he was given some songs by S.D. Burman, especially in Dev Anand films. And SD had re-launched him through ‘Aradhana’. But it was SD’s son R.D. Burman who struck up a great combination with Kishore. Their pairing gave us hundreds of evergreen songs.
Speaking to this writer in Kochi in 1993, RD had said, “Kishoreda was a volcano of talent. If a composer gave him a tune, he would add his own insights into it. The result would amaze even the composer.”
It was said that RD and SD would compose the tune, record it in their voice and send the tape to Kishore two days before the recording. Kishore would internalise the song, act it out in private and immerse himself fully in it. No wonder he sang incredibly on the recording day (Those were the days of one-shot recording with a full orchestra and not the cut-and-paste skulduggery of today!)
Kishore produced plenty of hits with all the other music directors of the era too, including composers like Kalyanji-Anandji, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Rajesh Roshan, Bappi Lahiri and Ravindra Jain.
The media often covered his eccentricities more than his music - his four marriages, miserliness, income tax problems, intense craving for privacy, preference for horror films and so on. He had stated that he had no friends in Mumbai.
Kishore revolutionised stage singing in the early Seventies, singing from memory, without the help of a notebook. And he danced, pranced, ran, jumped and even crawled on stage, depending on the mood of the songs. Yet he never went out of tune.(Those days there was none of the on-stage lip-sync gimmicks that some of today’s singers indulge in!).
(Parayath is a music aficionado)
