Muse & Music, Music of the Golden Age Options

[swarapriya]

Muse & Music

Most film loving folks think that the music made for films from 50’s through 80’s represents golden age of music. This may be debatable. However, one thing is certain. Several great musicals emerged during this period and we saw the rise of many singing legends during this time.

One way to take a closer look at the music of the Golden Age is to look into the period through the female stars who were popular in this time frame. Because it is just about impossible to cater for all the stars, I came to a conclusion that probably the following 12 stars will sufficiently represent movies that are part of this golden era. These are:

Asha Parekh
Hema Malini
Mala Sinha
Mumtaz
Nutan
Rekha
Sadhana
Saira Banu
Sharmila Tagore
Vyjayanti Mala
Waheeda Rehman
Zeenat Aman

Others may come up with a different list. But for the music of the Golden Age I want to share with our fellow members these stars probably make a fair representation.

Let us look at filmographies of these actresses and see if we can come to some conclusions. I will present the filmographies in the order listed above.

[swarapriya]

Hamari Beti (1950)

This movie produced, acted, and directed by Shobhana Samarth introduced both of her daughters Nutan and Baby Tanuja to the screen for the first time. Even though the movie didn't click, Nutan's first perfromance as an actress clicked. In th next couple of decades she reamined a force in acting especially in those films that demanded a great deal of restraint, understanding, and sensitivity.

Snehal Bhatkar composed nine songs for the movie. Nutan, who initially wanted to be a singer, also sang a song in this movie. Later, Samarth also made "Chhabili" with Nutan and Bhatkar combination in which Nutan had some hit tracks.

Unfortunately I have only two songs from this movie. Mukesh's song is from a CD collection. The other songs source I am not positive. However, please be warned that its quality is very very poor. The missing seven songs are shown in red italics in the table below. I am requesting members to share these with us if they can.

Now for those two songs I promised ...