As we have said umpteen number of times before, very little information was available on the internet on Geeta ji before our website was launched on 23rd November 2008. As we are approaching the completion of two years of our website, here is an interesting aspect of Geeta ji as a playback singer. Intentionally or unintentionally, a lot of myths had been spread about our beloved singer, an ocean of talent. So it is our duty to bust such myths.
Myth 1 : Geeta Dutt sang mostly for her husband’s films.
Myth buster : Geeta ji sang an approximate 1500-1600 songs in her life. Out of these precisely 42 have been sung for Guru Dutt films. The rest are obviously for outside banners
Myth 2 : Geeta Dutt sang most of her songs for O P Nayyar, S D Burman and some for Hemant Kumar.
Myth buster : Without denying the fact that some of her popular songs are composed by this trio of maestros, the fact is that she sang for approximately 150 – 175 composers in her career.
Myth 3 : Geeta Dutt sang only for Hindi films.
Myth buster : Geeta ji sang Hindi film songs, Hindi non-film songs, Bengali film and non-film songs, Gujrati film and non-film songs. She also sang in Marathi, Punjabi, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Nepali etc. We even have unconfirmed information that she has sung song (s) in Tamil and even in English.
Myth 4 : Geeta Dutt sang mostly sad songs.
Myth buster : Geeta ji must be the only singer to have sung such a wide range of variety of songs in an active career spanning from 1946 to 1959. There is no single human emotion which has not been touched by her voice. We listed her happy mood songs just from Hindi and the list came out to be more than 500.
Myth 5 : Geeta Dutt sang mostly club songs/light songs.
Myth buster : At the cost of repeating, we can say that Geeta ji has sung a wide range of variety of songs including sad songs. Every year she came up with a popular light song, there is at least one deep and rich emotional sad song.
Myth 6 : Geeta Dutt sang mostly for dancers/side actresses.
Myth buster : Geeta ji sang for most of the major heroines of the 40s and 50s. The list includes Meena Kumari, Madhu Bala, Nargis, Geeta Bali, Nutan, Vyjayantimala, Nalini Jaywant, Anita Guha, Nirupa Roy, Kumkum, Padmini, Nasim Banu, Durga Khote, Helen, Cukoo, Kalpana Kartik, Kamini Kaushal, Mala Sinha, Nadira, Shyama, Shakila, Tanuja, Usha Kiron, etc.
Myth 7 : Geeta Dutt sang for a handful of films, say about 50-60.
Myth buster : Geeta ji sang songs for about 600 plus films.
Myth 8 : Geeta Dutt did not sing any classical based songs.
Myth buster : Even though she did not get any formal training in classical music, Geeta ji has sang about 25 -30 classical based compositions in the limited opportunities she got.
Myth 9 : Geeta Dutt sang mostly in the fifties.
Myth buster : Geeta ji began her career as early as in 1946. We have unconfirmed information that she even recorded some songs in the year 1945. She sang an approximately 400 songs from 1946 till 1950, a record of sorts. She was the number one female playback singer in those years. Even after 1950, she was one of the topmost three singers (with Lata ji and Shamshad ji) for several years.
Myth 10: Geeta Dutt was only famous for bhajans and sad songs.
Myth buster : In the late forties, many of the films made had social, mythological and rural backgrounds. In many cases, they had sad songs and bhajan songs. Geeta ji sang those songs and even romantic songs with equal ease. She has sung some amazingly charming romantic songs even for mythological films.
Myth 11 : Geeta Dutt sang mostly simple songs.
Myth buster : Geeta ji was extremely talented and knew how to modulate her voice very well. She has sung extremely complex tunes but many of those songs are lesser heard gems. Watch this space for an article on such songs.
Myth 12 : Geeta Dutt sang mostly duets with Mohd Rafi sahab.
Myth buster : Geeta ji has sung duets with almost all the major male and female playback singers of the 40s and 50s. The list is over 75 co-singers.
Myth 13 : Geeta Dutt did not sing for the maestro composers of the 40s.
Myth buster : Geeta ji has sung for Master Ghulam Haider sahab, Naushad sahab, Shyam Sunder sahab, Pankaj Mullick sahab, Timir Baran sahab, S N Tripathi sahab, Vasant Desai sahab, C Ramchandra sahab among many other composers of the 40s.
Myth 14 : Geeta Dutt lost her voice in the sixties.
Myth buster : Under the limited opportunities she got in the early sixties, she has sung very nice songs. Even her songs from the film Anubhav (1971) are simply divine.
Myth 15 : Geeta Dutt did not sing for classical maestros.
Myth buster : Geeta ji has sung some very nice songs for composers like Pandit Ravi Shankar sahab, Alla Rakha sahab (aka A R Qureshi) and Ali Akbar Khan sahab.
Looking forward to the comments/feedback from music lovers.
* This post was originally posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2010. We lost some pages due to technical issue. Now we are in the process of re-publishing these articles.
Tags: Busters, Myth Busters, Myths
Myths, lies, misconceptions… they dogged Geeta ji throughout her life and even afterwards. This wonderful post breaks the myths irrevocably with facts and figures. I am bookmarking this page for future reference.
Very informative and so very enlightening.