A Journey Down Melody Lane

Raju Bharatan is the author of this one. Cricket and movie journalist of repute, he seems to have the handle on a lot of things. Indian ragas for example. He seems to know a 100 ragas and the songs based on them at least.

And hundreds of stories, anecdotes about the ego clashes, insecurities of even greats like Lata Mangeshkar, Sahir Ludhianvi (lyricist), Mohd. Rafi, Naushad, OP Nayyar etc. Even stars like Guru Dutt, Waheeda Rehman, Rajesh Khanna and so on.

But he is in his elements while talking about the music of the 50s and 60s. C. Ramchandra, Madan Mohan, Naushad, Ravi, OP Nayyar, SD Burman, Salil Chowdhary,and many others are the subject of long chapters. An interesting story is how in the year of 'Mughal-e-Azam', someone else got the Filmfare prize for the best music. And the same thing happened in the year that 'Guide' was released. Presumably, there was manipulation done by the winners, according to Raju.

Lata's fallouts with OP Nayyar, and with Rafi on the royalty issue, are touched on. The rivalry between Lata and upcoming singers is also covered in detail. The grudging acknowledgement of Kishore Kumar as a powerhouse singer is quoted from many peers, including Manna Dey.

An add on is that he also mentions who each song was filmed on. A great melodious ride down memory lane.