Clicking on the following links or images will take you to the collected songs of the Hindi film music luminaries covered in this section:
This section includes the collected songs of the luminaries of the Hindi film music industry, primarily from the Golden Age (1949-1980). [See here for more details on the different eras of Hindi film music.] There are three groups of luminaries covered here: singers, music directors and lyricists, and together these amazing artists created a body of work during the Golden Age that in my opinion will never be equaled. Click on each artist below for the direct link to their collected works.
Playback Singers
When one talks about playback singers of Hindi film songs, five names stand head and shoulders above the rest. They are such icons that they are generally referred to by simply one name: Asha, Kishore, Lata, Mukesh and Rafi. The breadth and quality of their collective output is unsurpassable, and they performed equally well in both solos and duets. Please see below for the direct links to the collected works of the ‘Big 5’ classified into three categories: solos, duets and all (complete lists).
Asha (solos, duets, all) Kishore (solos, duets, all) Lata (solos, duets, all) Mukesh (solos, duets, all) Rafi (solos, duets, all)
Of course, there were many other amazing singers during the Golden Age (each with their own unique style) and their contributions are truly memorable as well. Please see below for links to their collected works (performing both individually and with other singers).
Geeta Dutt Hemant Kumar* Mahendra Kapoor Manna Dey Shamshad Begum Suman Kalyanpur Suraiya Talat Mahmood
Music Directors
During the Golden Age of Hindi films, there was a confluence of an incredibly talented and prolific group of music directors and lyricists who collectively produced an extraordinary collection of songs which will last through the ages. The following are the direct links to the collected works of the ‘Tier 1’ music directors in alphabetical order. These composers attained the highest level of popularity and fame during the Golden Age and were truly the titans in their field.
(Top-Tier) C. Ramchandra Hemant Kumar* Kalyanji Anandji Laxmikant Pyarelal Madan Mohan Naushad O.P. Nayyar R.D. Burman Ravi Roshan S.D. Burman Salil Chowdhury Shankar Jaikishen
There were other music directors in this era who were perhaps not as prolific or as consistent in the quality of their songs as the titans above; however, their work during the Golden Age (and in some cases beyond) was notable as well. These are listed below in alphabetical order.
(Others) Bappi Lahiri Chitragupt Ghulam Mohammed Jaidev Khayyam N. Dutta Rajesh Roshan Ravindra Jain Usha Khanna Vasant Desai
Lyricists
Lyricists comprised a very important ‘third leg’ of the process of creating memorable Hindi songs. Without their poetry, philosophy and flowery contextual language, the songs would not attain the caliber that has enabled them to stand the test of time. Just as in the case of the music directors listed above, I have classified the lyricists into two groups: ‘Tier 1’ and ‘others’, though this is based purely on my own subjective judgment. Here are the lists in alphabetical order.