There are many other songs (not mentioned in the comments here) which had multiple versions --
Sahir Ludhianvi: Tang aa chuke hain -- Pyasa (Rafi, SD Burman) and Light House (Asha, N.Dutta)
Amir Khusro: Kahe ko byahe bides -- Suhagrat (Mukesh, Snehal Bhatkar), Umrao Jaan (Jagjit Kaur, Khayyam) -- this has many other variants, some modern.
Nawab Wajid Ali Shah: Babul mora -- Street Singer (K.L. Sehgal, R.C. Boral) and Avishkar, (Jagjit and Chitra singh, Kanu Roy). Haunting rendition by Jagjit-Chitra.
On Wednesday, March 10, 2004 at 12:34:48 PM UTC+5:30, Robin wrote:
Hello @ rmim..
This weekend I heard for the first time and to my utter delight,
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Sahib's rendition of 'mai aur meri awaargi'.
It seems so odd that a poem written by Javed Akhtar would find a
common platform in singers of a style as disparate as NFAK and Kishore
Kumar!
And what an amazing contrast between these two masters of voice, in delivering the same lines -
In Kishore's version we have the smooth and effortless essay of the
famously deep baritone, tinged with that sense of irony and bitterness
which Kishore could bring forth in such songs, all backed up by RDB's impeccable orchestration and tuning.
In Nusrat's version we have the inimitable fluidity of range and
emotion, the seeming madness of a Whirling-Dervish, but in absolute
control and the mystic abandon of a Sufi master. (I forget who
music-directed his version..iirc it is Raju Singh?)
All of which may be an over-billing and there are sure to be critics
of either version, but on the whole, these are two brilliant
renditions of one set of lyrics. At least that is my opinion.
An unusual instance in the case of Javed Akhtar - where a modest set
of rhyme is set into grand motion by the singer, where it the quite
often the other way around, when his lyrics soar far above the singer
or the song situation.
Anyway, all this leads me to ask - apart from the most common case of
Mirza Ghalib's poetry being recited by more than one singer, in film
and non-film ghazals, what would be the other instances of one set of
lyrics being versioned in more than one voice? (Obviously, we know of
the 'do pahelu do geet', tandem-song instances from Hindi films, where Kishore Kumar holds the record with around 60 such pairs)
The poetry of renowned names like Sudarshan Fakir have seen non-film
ghazals in multi-versions, starting with Jagjit Singh and other
singers I can't recollect at the moment. Talat Aziz (whose debut album
was supervised by Jagjit) also has his versions of SF gems, iirc.
But I find a case like Nusrat and Kishore's beautiful song from Duniya
to be an unsual example of two widely different talents leaving their
very diverse influence on the same words. Such re-renditions are blase
in rock/pop music (say Neil Diamond, as an example) but not so
frequent in Hindi film/non-film music?
Would be interested in knowing of other such instances.
Regards..Robin
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