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Few Dev Anand Songs Without His Trademark Singers
Dreaming young, staying young. With his trademark scarf and the signature puff hair, the man, a dapper, who lived through the philosophy of his song Main Zindagi Ka Saath Nibhata Chala Gaya. The debonair Dev. Forever young, forever romantic. His films always reflected the modern insight and future awareness. He represents a particular era of history of Hindi cinema of which he was an integral part for almost 65 years. He had a huge influence on Hindi cinema and beyond it. He was always alert to new ideas and possibilities.
Along with his brothers he worked on to numerous ideas that went on to become box office hits. Most loved leading man, he hypnotised generations of audience. Fearless in his approach, he reflected contemporary ideas and busted old taboos. He also possessed a great sense for music. Music in his films laid a benchmark for the other Hindi films. His association with playback singers like Rafi and Kishore Kumar is well known. These 2 singers gave Dev Anand maximum playback, followed by Hemant Kumar. Apart from the said artists Dev Anand was also given playback by Talat Mahmood, Manna Dey etc.
The article showcases few such songs of Dev Anand which were not rendered by his trademark singers like Rafi, Kishore or Hemant Kumar.
1. Vidya (1948) – Mukesh – Mukesh was one of the top most singers of the era but he has rendered very few songs for Dev Anand. May be just 3-4. Vidya is the first of their association. Another one being Bambai Ka Babu.
2. Dilruba (1950) – G.M.Durrani – The film starring Dev Anand with Rehana had some good songs of Geeta Dutt, set to tune by Gyan Dutt. For this particular duet Dev Anand has been given playback by none other than G.M.Durrani, which is very unusual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXAiMdZ–Dg
3. Taxi Driver (1954) – Jagmohan Bakshi – Made under the Navketan banner, Taxi Driver had wonderful music by S.D.Burman assisted by Jaidev. The playback for this particular song was given by Asha Bhonsle and Jagmohan Bakshi for Kalpana Kartik and Dev Anand respectively.
4. Baarish (1957) – C. Ramchandra – Sharing a delightful chemistry on screen, Dev Anand and Nutan sing to the tunes of C. Ramchandra where the MD himself gives playback for the evergreen star.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayrJfNGoul0
5. Bambai Ka Babu (1960) – Manna Dey – The film which has one of the best soundtrack by S.D.Burman, starring Suchitra Sen and Dev Anand. This not so known peppy number picturised on Dev Anand has been rendered by Manna Dey.
6. Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja (1961) – Mahendra Kapoor – With one of the best romantic couple on screen, Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman, the film had music by Shankar – Jaikishen. This tribal song has Mahendra Kapoor giving playback for Dev Anand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7k5vQmSlvk
7. Maya (1961) – Dwijen Mukherjee – This song also happens to be one the best of Dwijen Mukherjee in Hindi cinema. Under the music direction of Salil Chowdhury and leading the chorus of the song is none other than Lata Mangeshkar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S199DH_hDfU
8. Jeet (1949) – Shankar Das Gupta – Another song added to the list. Picturised on Suraiya and Dev Anand, music by pitamah of Hindi film music Anil Biswas, lyrics by Prem Dhawan and rendered by Shankar Das Gupta for Dev Anand, Suraiya for herself!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jen7t-IRr8
Which one from the above list is your favourite Dev Anand number?
Debamitra Guha
September 26, 2016 at 3:25 am
What an amazing collecttion of songs….Truely speaking….All of them…but being a Bengali I am little biased to Dwijen Mukherjee song..
Deepa
September 26, 2016 at 12:15 pm
Thank you. I like Dwijen Mukherjee’s voice too!!
Milind
September 26, 2016 at 8:49 pm
Yes.Dwijen Mukharjee song is the best. And Salilda’s characteristic choir chorus is fantastic.
Deepa
September 26, 2016 at 9:24 pm
Very true. And Salil da was a champion when it came to chorus singing!!
Dinesh shah
September 27, 2016 at 2:09 pm
You missed one singer who sang a duet with lata from the film Roop ki raani choron ka raja..
We all are aware and its a known fact that Rafi and Kishore Kumar were mainly the only playback singers for Dev Anand. But the fact also is that other singers who have sung for Dev Anand include G M Durrani, Mukesh, Talat Mehmood, Manna Dey, Hemant Kumar, Jagmohan, C Ramchandra, Dwijen Mukherji, Shankar Dasgupta, Bhupinder Singh etc. With this song, we add another name to the list of playback singers for Dev Anand. In this song Mahendra Kapoor sings for Dev Anand. It is the only occasion when Mahendra Kapoor sang for Dev Anand.
This song is a duet with Lata too singing alongwith chorus. The song is a folk dance song where Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman find themselves among villagefolks who speak Bangla. The song has a few Bangla lines (sung by chorus) which I am unable to fully decipher,https://youtu.be/SIcicmhllIE
Deepa
September 27, 2016 at 2:39 pm
The song hasn’t been missed. It is there in the list at number 6.
Vipin Sharma
May 17, 2018 at 9:28 am
Unlike his contemporaries Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapur, Dev Anand had a relatively wider number of playback singers. Very interesting information. Thanks for sharing
Deepa
May 23, 2018 at 7:38 pm
Thank you 🙂
K Devender
March 11, 2019 at 7:24 am
Dev anand is a tallest figure in the entire Indian film industry, he has millions of fans from kashmir to kanya kumari and across all languages.
Deepa
March 12, 2019 at 2:10 pm
Indeed! He’s amongst the tallest figures in the industry.