Mohammad Rafi

Mohammad Rafi

Mohammad Rafi was born on 24th December 1924 (24 December 1924– 31 July 1980), was an Indian recording artist who is considered by many to be one of the greatest Indian playback singers of the Hindi film industry. In his lifetime, he was awarded the National Film Award, Best National Singer Award and six Filmfare Awards. In 1967, he was honoured with the Padma Shri award by the Government of India. His singing career spanned about 35 years. Rafi is noted for his ability to sing songs of different moods and varieties: They ranged from classical numbers to patriotic songs, sad lamentations to highly romantic numbers, qawwalis to ghazals and bhajans. He is best known for romantic and duet songs and, as a playback singer, his ability to mould his voice to the persona of the actor lip-synching the song.

Rafi is primarily noted for his songs in Hindustani, over which he had a strong command. He sang in other Indian languages including  Assamese , Konkani,Bhojpuri, Oriya, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Sindhi, Kannada, Gujarati , Telugu, Maghi, Maithili and Urdu. He also recorded a few songs in English, Persian, Spanishand Dutch. From available figures, Rafi sang 4,516 Hindi film songs, 112 non-Hindi film songs, and 328 private (non-film) songs from 1945 to 1980.

Mohammed Rafi was the youngest of six brothers. His father was Hajji Ali Mohammad. The family lived in Kotla Sultan Singh, a village near present-day Amritsarin Punjab, India. Rafi, whose nickname was Pheeko, began singing by imitating the chants of a fakir in his village. Rafi's father moved to Lahore in the 1920s where he ran a men's salon in Noor Mohalla in Bhatti Gate. His elder brother, Mohammad Deen, had a friend, Abdul Hameed, (future brother-in-law), who spotted the talent in Rafi in Lahore and encouraged him to sing. Abdul Hameed later convinced the family elders to let Rafi move to Mumbai; he accompanied him in 1944.

Rafi learnt classical music from Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan, Pandit Jiwan Lal Mattoo and Firoze Nizami. His first public performance came at the age of 13, when he sang in Lahore featuring K. L. Saigal. In 1941, Rafi, under Shyam Sunder, made his debut in Lahore as a playback singer in the duet "Soniye Nee, Heeriye Nee" with Zeenat Begum in the Punjabi film Gul Baloch(released in 1944). In that same year, Rafi was invited by All India Radio Lahore station to sing for them.

He made his professional debut in the Shyam Sunder-directed 1941 Punjabi film Gul Baloch and the earliest debut in a Hindi film was Gaon Ki Gori in 1945.