Kishore Kumar - singer with Sweetest voice

Today is the 38^th Death Anniversary of Kishore Kumar one of the greats of Hindi and Bengali film industry.   Kishore had sweetest, and most romantic voice, but when required he used to put lot of energy into the song.   Janeja dhoodh ta phir raha, Om Shanti Om, Ek Haseena Thi, Ek diwana tha were few of the examples of his energy Having come from acting background, he developed himself to be a performer apart from a singer.    Unlike most of his contemporaries, Kishore was the first singer who did not have any classical music background and was not interested in singing and happy being an actor/comedian.   Thanks to the goading by his elder brother and actor Ashok Kumar he was pushed into the singing.   Come Aradhana and sensational hit songs of that movie by Kishore under the music direction of SD Burman there was no looking back.   First backed by SD and his son RD, then followed by all other music directors like Kalyanji Anandji, LP, Rajesh Roshan, he gave some of the top chart busters of 70s and shaken the undisputed position of Rafi, whose career took a bit of dip in 70s compared to 50s and 60s.   Kishore has become the voice of not only Rajesh Khanna, but all other top heros like Dev Anand, Amitabh, Vinod Khanna, Dharmendra and Feroz Khanna.    He extended his range to the next generation younger heros like Rishi (despite stupendous success of Bobby by Shailender Singh), Rakesh Roshan, Vinod Mehra and Sanjay Dutt.

Kishore in collaboration with Kalyanji Anandhi troupe has become the pioneer of live music concerts in India and abroad on a regular basis.   The energy with which he used to sing on stage, moving and dancing all around the stage and singing songs very close to the original studio recording without every referring to the lyrics, was amazing and no one could do so at that time with a possible exception of S P Balasubramanian later on.  

There was never a dull moment when Kishore was around, every singer, music director and actor has so many anecdotes to share of his practical jokes, unending innovative things he used to do spontaneously to lighten up any situation.   He once asked Lata see the lyrics of this movie, `Suno Kaho kuch hua to kya, abhi to nahi, kuch bhi nahi’, when Lata asked what is so special about it, he asked her just imagine if singers sing this song while sitting on a pot.  Such crazy ideas can come to Kishore only.   There were many stories of his troubling producers in a funny manner who have not paid him advance to sing.   He was so particular about his payments and his policy of not singing unless he was paid advance that he refused to sing in a program organised by Sanjay Gandhi unless he is paid his fee and in return Sanjay Gandhi got his songs been banned from AIR and Doordarshan for over an year.  

Though Kishore was not trained in classical music and unlike SPB, he never learnt classical music subsequently also, he sang some of the most iconic songs based on classical ragas like Mere Naina Sawan Badho (Raag Sivaranjani), Kuch to log kahenge (Raag Khamaj) Rim Jhim gire sawan (raag Keeravani) Humain tum se pyar kitna (raag Bhairavi) and many more.

There is no denying that Kishore played a huge role in the super stardom of Rajesh Khanna, later on of Amitabh, Risi, Vinod Khanna and super success of music directors like Rajesh Roshan, RD Burman, LP, Kalyanji Anandji and Bappi Lehari

                 

Apart form being a singer he was great comedian and in super hit comedies viz., Chalti ka naam gadi, Padosan, Half Ticket, Pyar Kiya ja he was simply brilliant, and these movies are enjoyable even now.   Besides singing and acting, he has tried his hands at lyrics, music direction, producing and directing.   But his becoming super successful in singing had forced him to give up acting due to very tight schedules and we lost a brilliant comedian in the process.

Overall Kishore Kumar has given great entertaining to film industry as an Actor first and later on more as a Singer. 

There can be superior or inferior singers (as per one’s own liking) but there could never be another Kishore, a man with sweetest voice and unimaginable energy.

 

S Prabhakar

13.10.25