Saregama’s latest release Immortal Duo - Kishore Kumar & Laxmikant-Pyarelal is a stunner from the music company and features 40 winners and is a complete steal for the price. But at the cost of being accused of nitpicking, we dare say that this collection in the MP3 format could have as easily had as many as double that number of songs, and yet left more to spare from the Kishore-L-P ouevre.
Again at the outset, let us wonder why one of the biggest Kishore-L-P collaborations is missing - Haathi Mere Saathi, which finds an irreplaceable place in film music history as the first album ever to be awarded a Silver Disc for outstanding sales figures by this company. And Kishoreda had sung five of the six all-hit songs in the film!
But never mind. What is present is nothing less than superb, packed as the CD is with rare exotica like Tere bagair jaan-e-jaana (Anari/1975), Prem ka rog lagaa (Do Premee¸ arguably among the dozen best Kishore-L-P solos of all time), Mere sang sang aaya (Rajput) and Qusoor teri nazaron ka tha (Nirdosh) along with chartbusters galore such as Ruk jaana nahin from Imtihan, Mere dil mein aaj kya hai from Daag, Manubhai motor chali from Phool Khile Hain Gulshan Gulshan, Yeh jeevan hai from Piya Ka Ghar and Om shanti om from Karz among many others.
There is also the historic Mere mehboob qayamat hogi from Mr X In Bombay, the beginning of their 32-year-long association. And Kishore also ranked this song (as revealed by son Amit Kumar) among his dozen best of all time along with another L-P creation that is also present here - the title-track of Jaaneman.
At whim, the album goes into duets, but what you truly savour are the well-researched beauties, hit, popular and otherwise, like Ek ritu aaye (Gautam Govinda), Sundari aaye haaye sundari (Anokhi Ada) and Ladkhadane do mujhe (Palkon Ki Chhaon Mein) and many more. And we prefer to give the music company the benefit of doubt by hoping that the gems missing from here are all being short-listed for future compilations!
For let’s not deny - like they did with Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi and Mukesh, Laxmikant-Pyarelal gave Kishoreda far more variety than any other composer did, even pushing the envelope for this K.L.Saigal devotee by offering him the challenge of disco (Karz) and fusion of classical with Western (Jhatpat ghunghat khol from the 1987 Sindoor, which cannot be included because it is on T-Series). And it was L-P who offered Kishore the challenge of ghazals (Mere diwanepan ki bhi from Mehboob Ki Mehndi and Mere dil mein aaj kya hai from Daag - both present here), qawwali (Anokhi Ada, Anari - not around), mujra (Sacchai chhup nahi sakti from Dushmun), folk, Western, pop and other folk and modern flavours.
L-P’s preferred company for Kishore was Lata Mangeshkar, unlike the other composers who generally opted for Asha Bhosle. The Kishore-Lata-L-P combo is not represented here at all, though we have the unsung Gokul ki galiyon ka gwala from Raaste Pyar Ke with both Lata and Asha Bhosle. But on a sentimental note, Kishore’s song with Leena Chandarvarkar’s voice-over, Gham ka fasana from Manchali finds place here.
Also included are some lovelies that were hits in their times, but got lost over the years as the films sank into oblivion, like Shor mach gaya shor (Badla), Kabhi khole na tijori ka tala (Bidaai) and Koi na jab tera saathi ho (Insaan).
Go grab this compilation.
