It’s Friday!
This week it’s a return to the fertile shores of Bollywood only this time with a Liverpool twist. This number from the film “Janwar” is a loose interpretation of The Beatles “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” complete with a Faux Fab Four. You can tell they’re not the real The Beatles because they all play the guitar and they’re all right-handed.
Our lead actor is Bollywood legend Shammi Kapoor. He was India’s most popular leading man in the 50s and 60s. Some refer to him as the Indian Elvis. However, unlike Elvis, Kapoor didn’t sing. As with most Bollywood stars, his singing was dubbed, in this case by another Indian legend, Mohammed Rafi. Rafi started his professional career at the age of 14 and became widely known for his versatility. He could sing classical, traditional, pop and rock ‘n’ roll equally well. He recorded over seven thousand songs, mostly in Hindi but also in the Indian languages of Assamese, Konkani, Bhojpuri, Odia, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Sindhi, Kannada, Gujarati, Telugu, Magahi, Maithili and Urdu.
Wow.
He also recorded in English, Farsi, Arabic, Sinhalese, Creole and Dutch.
Creole? Huh. OK.
Sadly, he died young in 1980 at the age of 55, but he’s still revered in India as one of the greatest singers of the 20th century
Makes you want to hold his hand.
Have a groovy weekend!
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