I am impressed by the ITRANS Song book 3.1. But I feel that all the
names of films should have been tagged with their Year of release. All
these films and music in them are now part of history and history is
never complete without mention of date/year.
Also there are more than one films with the same name.
Without their release year, the whole thing becomes very confusing.
Isn't it ?

Tagore songs-hardly heard today, posted in the audio section of
www.kanandevi.com

The singers include Niharbala, Krishnabhamini, Harendra Nath Datta,
Hemanta Mukherjee, Krishna Chandra dey, Bina Choudhury, Utpala Sen,
Rajeswari Datta, Bechu Datta and Shanta Apte and others.
Also posted two song bits of Kanan Devi from
KARNARJUN record play.

Jyoti Prakash Guha.

Had a telephone talk with the Begum, thanks to "RAAZ"-who provided her
phone number in this forum. Talked for about half an hour and she sang for
me-MUJHKO APNE GALE LAGALO....
She also sang AAO BACHHO TUMHE DIKHAYEN ... as Kavi Pradeep's name came
up...
I told her that it seemed she recorded the song that very day... and I
meant it.. Really, she is wonderful even today..
The rest of the conversation was personal.
Thanks again for providing her phone number.
JYOTI PRAKASH GUHA

The compilation of naat-s (released by Saregama) that has 6 naat-s by
Begum Akhtar also has 9 naat-s sung by Mubarak Begum. Four of them
have the year listed - 1957 - and one assumes the others were recorded
at/around the same time. But there is another way of dating them: each
and every one of these 9 naat-s borrows the tune and orchestration of
some film song or the other, so one just has to look at the release
date of the original tune!

When the first two songs played, I was mildly amused. As the pattern
continued, it got exasperating; by the sixth song, I was would have
happily chucked the CD into the Bay of Bengal had the first six songs
not been the BA naat-s! Not only are the tunes borrowed from film
songs, the orchestration - right down to the choral bits - is copied
completely. The words, having been written to fit the tunes, end up
sounding forced and downright weird at times. What possessed Saregama
to combine the sublime and the ridiculous in one compilation?!

I am posting lyrics of seven of the nine MB songs as a quiz - the
point is to guess the original tune from the metre and (in many cases)
the phrasing itself - the latter a dead give-away! The answers (the
original song) are given below the naat lyrics. Have fun!

First things first - the treasure. There has been a sudden rush of
Begum Akhtar releases toward the end of 2007. First came the CD
release of that marvellous HMV LP "Begum Akhtar sings Ghalib",
capturing BA in her latter-day splendour; then came the Megaphone 4-CD
release of 64 (yes, 64!!) 78 rpm recordings of Akhtaribai, most of
them being made available for the first time after the original 78 rpm
releases and capturing perfectly the spirit and fiery power of her
early singing; and then, again from HMV (RPG), a CD compilation of
naat-s ("Shah-E-Madina - Exclusive Naaten") that includes 6 naat-s of
Begum Akhtar's, mellow and contemplative renditions recorded between
1961 and 1970. (The latter CD also includes 9 naat-s by Mubarak Begum
- more on that later!)

I can't remember the last time one got so many goodies unasked - may
be there *is* a Santa Claus somewhere!

The 6 BA naat-s in this compilation are listed below. The last two
were released by HMV earlier on the two-cassette set, "Begum Akhtar -
Rare Gems". The others, AFAIK, are being released for the first time
after the EP record release.