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Naushad was born in Lucknow in 1919 in an orthodox family that had no interest, whatsoever, in music. But Naushad knew that he was different. He used to get caned each time he returned home late from the movies, even at the age of ten.
Naushad then got entangled with a junior theatrical club. He was accepted only because of his films for music, even though he was underage. "Later, when a natak company came to Lucknow, I joined it. They were playing Laila Majnu. This was the first time i did not bother about anyone at home. I ran away with them and visited places like Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bareilly, Gujrat. In Viramgaum, the company flopped and had no return home."
In was in 1937 that a broken but not embittered Naushad stepped wnto Bombay. And his long struggle started all over again. The only person he knew in Bombay was the head master of the Anjuman-I-Islam High School with whom he stayed for a while.
Naushad Ali was an Indian musician. He was one of the foremost music directors for Bollywood films, and is particularly known for popularizing the use of classical music in films.
His first film as an independent music director was Prem Nagar in 1940. His first musical success film was Rattan (1944), following it up with 35 silver jubilee hits, 12 golden jubilee and 3 diamond jubilee mega successes. Naushad was conferred the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1982, and the Padma Bhushan in 1992.
Naushad grow up in Lucknow, a city with a long tradition as a center of Muslim culture. His father, Wahid Ali, was a munshi (court clerk). As a child, Naushad would visit the annual fair at the Deva Sharif in Barabanki, 25 km from Lucknow, where all the great qawwals and musicians of those days would perform before the devotees. He studied Hindustani music there under Ustad Ghurbat Ali, Ustad Yusuf Ali, Ustad Babban Saheb, and others. He also repaired harmoniums.
As a lad, he joined a junior theatrical club and was appointed the club's music maestro for their theatrical presentations. He used to watch silent films at the Royal theatre in Lucknow. Theatre owners would hire a team of musicians to play the tabla, harmonium, sitar and violin. The musicians would watch the film first, make notes, finalise the scales required. When the show began in the evening, they would sit in front of the screen and play music for the scenes. This was a great way to be entertained and learn music at the same time. It made him grasp the nuances required in composing a film's background music score.
Naushad had already become a cinema fan in the silent era, and then, in 1931, Indian cinema got voice and music that further fascinated the 13 year old boy. But his family was strict follower of Islamic diktat of prohibition of music and his father gave him ultimatum to leave music if he wanted to stay at home. He ran away to Bombay (now called Mumbai) in the late 1937 to try his luck as a musician.
When the nation listened to the song Suhani Raat Dhal Chuki, Na Jane Tum Kab Aaogi, people were struck by the freshness in the voice. It was very distinct and different from the nasal twang popularised by K.L.Saigal. By the end of 1940s, an era was ending in Hindi Cinema. Partition made some irreversible changes to the film industry. The singing superstar Nur Jehan left for Lahore. The popularity of playback singing made the ability to sing redundant for an actor and specialists rose in the field. Perhaps the biggest blow was the tragic death of Kundan Lal Saigal in 1947, an icon who inspired an entire generation of singers. A huge vacuum had been created in the musical arena of Bombay cinema. A fresh breed of singers was waiting to take over.
Introduced by Husanlal Bhagatram, Mohammed Rafi was singing small pieces for many songs. Naushad spotted his talent and gave him the big break in Dulari (1948) in which he sang Suhani Raat Dhal Chuki. The song and the singer became runaway hits. In the same year, Naushad gave Lata a big hit in Andaz. Mukesh and Kishore Kumar had already entered the arena. The actors who entered the industry around this time were not singing anymore for their movies. Once while recording a song for Aan(1951), Talat Mahmood supposedly riled Naushad by smoking before him in the recording studio. Naushad replaced Talat with Rafi.
In 1952, Prakash Pictures’ Baiju Bawra was released and became one of the biggest musical blockbusters of all time, running for 100 weeks in Bombay with each and every song rocking the charts of Binaca Geetmala, the musical countdown show on Radio Ceylon. Rafi became a sensation and became a force to reckon with thereafter. In a tribute to the Catholicism of India’s culture, the bhajan Man Tadpat Hari Darshan Ko Aaj of Baiju Bawra was a creation of three Muslims. It was written by Shakeel Badayuni, composed by Naushad and sung by Mohammed Rafi.
Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand soon rose as the star trio who dominated the industry in the 1950s and 60s. Mukesh and Manna Dey became the voices of Raj Kapoor and Rafi sang most of the songs of Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand. This match could also be attributed to the fact that Naushad and S.D.Burman, who composed most of the songs for Dilip and Dev respectively, were Rafi loyalists.
In Bombay, he initially stayed with an acquaintance from Lucknow (U.P.) at Colaba and after a while, shifted to Dadar opposite the Broadway theater where he would sleep on the footpath. His friend, lyricist D N Madhok trusted Naushad's unusual talent for composing music and introduced him to various film producers. Chandulal Shah, the owner of Ranjit Studios, offered to sign Naushad for one of his forthcoming films. Naushad composed a thumri for this film, ‘Bata de koi kaun gali gaye Shyam’, but the film never got on the floors. He was assistant music director for the Punjabi film 'Mirza Sahib' (1939).
He composed for his first independent film Prem Nagar in 1940 that had a story set in Kachchh for which he did a lot of research into the folk music of the area. With A.R. Kardar's film Nayi Duniya (1942), he got first credit as "music director" and he began to work regularly for Kardar Productions. He however had a flexibility that he could work outside Kardar Productions, and this arrangement continued ever after.
From 1942 until the late 1960s, he was one of the top music directors in Bollywood. While he did less than a hundred films during his lifetime, 26 of those films celebrated Silver jubilees (25 weeks run) -- 8 celebrated golden jubilees (50 weeks run) and 4 celebrated diamond jubilees (60 weeks run). (inclusive count - a diamond jubilee film also celebrated Silver and Golden jubilee)
Naushad worked with several lyricists, including Shakeel Badayuni, Majrooh Sultanpuri, D. N. Madhok, Zia Sarhadi, and Khumar Barabankvi.
In 1981, Naushad was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for his lifetime contribution to Indian cinema.
Naushad died on 5 May 2006 in Mumbai. He was buried at the Juhu Muslim cemetery.
Naushad was also a respected and published poet and formally launched his book of Urdu poetry entitled Aathwan Sur
He was one of the first to introduce sound mixing and the separate recording of voice and music tracks in playback singing. He was the first to combine the flute and the clarinet, the sitar and mandolin. He also introduced the accordion to Bollywood film music and was among the first to concentrate on background music to extend characters' moods and dialogue through music. But perhaps his greatest contribution was to bring Indian classical music into the film medium.
For Mughal-e-Azam (1960) song Ae Mohabbat Zindabad, he used a chorus of 100 persons. He asked Lata Mangeshkar to render a part of the song "Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya" in a bathroom that had glazed tiles and then recorded the music to get the echo effect.
For Ganga Jamuna (1961), he used lyrics in chaste Bhojpuri dialect.
He used just six instruments in the title song of Mere Mehboob (1963).
In 2004, a colorized version of the classic Mughal-e-Azam (1960) was released, for which Naushad had the orchestral music specially re-created (in Dolby Digital) by today’s industry musicians, while maintaining all the solo vocals from the original soundtrack. To elaborate, the playback vocals (though not the chorus) recorded four decades ago are mixed with orchestra tracks created in the present millennium.
Source : Wiki
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