Chhaayaageet #36 - "There's a new sound in Bollywood."
She hears the phone ring. A good friend, a famous filmmaker, is on the line. "We have to leave for another city to record a song."
What an unusual request? She is a renowned singer and Mumbai is the heart of all recording studios. Why go somewhere else? But such is life. After her husband's sudden passing away, she had been hit hard. Work had slowed down. She agrees and leaves for the trip.
They reach the hotel where the lyricist shows up with a cassette of the tune. They play the tune repeatedly until the lyricist has all the words down. She goes through multiple rehearsals and is now ready for the song.
They reach the composer's house which is also his recording studio. That's quite peculiar. They exchange greetings and pleasantries.
Time for a quick final rehearsal. Once it's done, the composer takes her to a recording room.
It is a really small dark room and there is nobody. The composer himself goes and adjusts the microphone to her height. Goes back to the other end of the room and provides the starting note on a keyboard.
"Take", he says. That's her cue to start singing, with just a note and a rhythm.
What??? She is not used to singing like this. Where are the musicians? Where is the orchestra? This is not going to be easy. She realizes this is no time to bicker and finally decides to go with the flow.
It's a challenging song, with high notes and the stanza takes it higher up a notch. She layers it with emotion. She gives her best.
"Very good", the composer exclaims. He is happy with the recording. She is still puzzled over the whole thing.
A few days later, she reaches the composer's house again to record the second song of the film.
"Would you like to hear the first song?"
She does not know what to expect. She sang the song along with just some guiding keyboard notes. "Sure, let's listen to it". She agrees curiously.
Once the song starts to play, she can't really place it. And then she hears her voice. She is shocked beyond belief by what she hears. There are all kinds of instruments playing in the background. There is violin, percussion, electric guitar, and many more instruments. More importantly, she hears a rhythm. That's when it strikes her, “This guy is a sound engineer. There's a new sound in Bollywood.”
Asha Bhosle sang this song for Rangeela which was produced and directed by Ram Gopal Varma, music was composed by AR Rahman, and lyrics were written by Mehboob. Rangeela was Rahman's debut movie in Bollywood, his previous films being remakes. This was the first song that Asha ji recorded for Rahman.
Rahman could have chosen any young voice to sing for the young and sexy Urmila Matondkar, but something told him that the sixty-two year old Asha Bhosle was still superior to all of them. In Rahman's words, "Asha ji can hold a song no matter how much instrumentation and sounds are added." Rahman wasn't sure Asha Bhosle would accept to sing for him or even travel to Chennai to record.
Ram Gopal Varma had to push Asha to go to Chennai to record this song since Rahman would not agree to travel anywhere else. His recording and mixing studio which he built in his backyard, eventually became the most advanced music studio in India.
Rahman has an unorthodox style of recording disparate voices and sounds and then using the latest technology to sweeten them and mixing them all together like a master chef's recipe. "If somebody goes off-key but delivers a line with the right feel, you don't have to sacrifice the take," he says. "You can adjust the pitch and use it."
For Rangeela, Rahman used Dolby Surround Sound, which made the music sound even better.
When the music of Rangeela was released in the South, the cassette distributors replaced the pictures of Aamir Khan and Urmila Matondkar with a mugshot of Rahman that screamed "The first original Hindi score of A.R. Rahman". Rahman's influence was such that producers demanded other composers to give them the 'Rahman effect'.
Rahman won the Best Music Filmfare award for Rangeela and Asha ji won the Special Filmfare award for the song Tanha Tanha. She, just like her elder sister, had decided not to accept the regular Filmfare award in order to promote younger upcoming singers. Now that the top composer had cast his vote with her, Asha ji was suddenly in demand. It is widely believed that Asha ji's singing career was going through a rough patch prior to this and got relaunched after Rangeela.
Singer: Asha Bhosle
Music: AR Rahman
Lyrics: Mehboob
Producer/Director: Ram Gopal Varma
*ing: Jackie Shroff, Urmila Matondkar
Film: Rangeela (1995)