Similar was the case with the dual version of his songs based on classical ragas as well. Ironically whenever there were dual versions of the same song it was Kishore Kumar’s version which not only became more popular but left a deeper impact and stayed with us in our heart far longer than the other version. During his entire career Kishore did manage to sing some raga-based songs for music directors like Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji, Ravindra Jain, Hemant Kumar, Shankar-Jaikishen, etc.Īt times his effortless singing made it sound as if the song was very easy. He also developed tremendous faith in Kishore and later when he became an independent composer, he gave Kishore plenty of songs that touched upon classical ragas. During this period R D Burman who assisted his father as his music arranger became friends with Kishore. It was Khemchand Prakash who gave Kishore Kumar his first break and later S D Burman who spotted Kishore’s talent and nurtured him in the early years. Initially even Salil Chaudhary was hesitant. He loved and respected his contemporaries too much to have any issues.Ī doyen like music director Naushad never recorded any song with him. Kishore of course had no qualms about this. There were a handful of occasions when the music directors chose to have him lip-sync to Mohammed Rafi and Manna Dey as they were classically trained and so these music directors felt that Kishore Kumar may not do justice to the particular songs based on classical ragas. In fact many songs chosen in this blog are picturized on Rajesh Khanna.ĭuring his career as an actor, not many opportunities came his way to sing songs based on classical ragas. With the super success of Aradhana in 1969, he became the voice of Superstar Rajesh Khanna. But that did not stop him from churning out superb songs which were all big hits. So Kishore never got to sing for Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar or Shammi Kapoor,etc. He got the opportunity to playback for only actor Dev Anand besides singing for himself in his own films as this was the time when a particular voice was used for a particular actor. Well! Is there any success story not beset with obstacles? Kishore Kumar for the first 20 years of his career had to become an actor and sing his own songs to prove that he was more than capable of handling any kind of song. Before that he had been part of a chorus song in 1946.īut things did not come easy for this youngest brother of Dadamoni- Ashok Kumar as the latter wanted Kishore to concentrate on acting. He started his career both as an actor and a solo playback singer in 1948 with the film Ziddi in which Dev Anand was the hero. From Dev Anand and Rajesh Khanna to Amitabh Bachchan and Randhir Kapoor, he infused a special life in his songs and contributed in a big way in giving these actors some of the biggest musical hits of their career.

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