Milestone Songs of Husnlal Bhagatram. (Music Directors)

The brothers Bhagatram (1914-1973) and Husnlal (1920-1968) were born in Kahma village in Jalandhar district in Punjab. They were initiated into music by their father Devi Chand. They later learnt music from their elder brother Pt. Amarnath. Husnlal had a passion for violin, and was also a good vocalist; he got further raining from Ustad Bashir Khan of Patiala. He also learnt music from the doyen of classical music, Pt. Dilip Chnadra Vedi. Bhagatram was an ace harmonium player. Bhagatram initially gave music solo in Bahadur Ramesh, Bhedi Kumar, Chashmawali, Midnight Mail (1939); Deepk Mahal and Tatar Ka Chor (with Ramgopal Pandey), Hamara Desh, Hatimtai Ki Beti (with Madhulal Damodar Master) and Sandesha (1940). In some of these films he used his full name Bhagatram Batish. These films and, with them, their music went unnoticed. Its is only when the brothers formed the duo Husnlal-Bhagatram that they hit gold with their debut movie Chaand (1944) which had a superlative song in Manju’s voice – Do dilon ko ye duniya milne bhi nahi deti. They shone among the brightest stars in 1948-51 with immortal songs for Suraiya, Lata Mangeshkar and Rafi. This places them in the tradition of Naushad and C Ramchandra, but Husnlal-Bhagatram’s decline thereafter was very sharp. Their protégé Shankar, teaming with Jaikishan, was lucky to get a break with Raj Kapoor’s Barsaat (1949). SJ became the duo to reckon. Naushad with Kardar and Mehboob Khan, C Ramchandra with Flmistan, and SD Burman with Navketan sewed up the big banners among them. The one distinctive feature of HB’s music – Punjabi style – stood no chance before OP Nayyar whose music screamed Punjab from miles. Shama Parwana (1954) and Adal-e-Jahagir (1955) were their last noteworthy films. They continued giving music to some nondescript films, their last film being Sher Afghan (1966). Khayyam also trained under them. Full article at : http://www.songsofyore.com/husnlal-bh...