QUOTE(Harjinder @ Sep 3 2006, 01:47 PM)

QUOTE(dharmvir @ Aug 30 2006, 11:53 AM)

QUOTE(Harjinder @ Aug 30 2006, 12:17 AM)

Janab Dharamvir saheb
Thanks again for fullfilling my longstanding wish to hear these songs. I may have heard them last time on radio in the 50;s.' Massia dee raat kaali' is a big favorite of mine.
There was a website named 'Articles@ the Oldies Club' which is defunct now that had mentioned a retired employee of Pakistan Railways who had the song 'Paani aya pullan de haith mahiya maheena Jaith maahiya'.I tried to contact people in the railways department in Pakistan by email to get hold of him but to no avail. If anyone can come up with the song or its source I would like to get a copy of this one.
The other ' Charkha kis gharia meri banh karendi peerh' seems like a lost cause.
But thanks a lot for cheering me up on my last day of this year's Summer Vacation, with these historical gems. Harjinder
Harjinder Ji,
I have tried also at my end in Punjab,These songs are not available anywhere in Punjab,
There was a hope to find with only one person at Ahmadgadh but he was too rude to share during his life and he expired about a year or so back without giving his viraasat to anyone.
Janab Dharamvir saheb
About a month ago there was an article posted ( on this site?) that mentioned a place near Jama Masjid in Delhi where two gentlemen have almost every Indian record (LP, EP,78 rpm,etc.) in their collection. I have not been able to locate that article. But when I come to India I will just enquire about those two collectors in that area. If someone can point the post location on the website or just give names of those two gentlemen, then may be some of your searched songs and mine could end up being located with those two gentlemen. Harjinder
Fascinating old curiosity music shop
Shop 256 in old Delhi’s Meena Bazaar houses one of the biggest collections of vinyl records from all over the world, writes SURABHI KHOSLA.
It is easy to get lost in the myriad by-lanes of old Delhi. From the famed Jama Masjid to Khari Baoli and from Chitli Qabar to Balli Maran it is a world away from the frenetic capital of India. Wedged between Jama Masjid and Dariba Kalan is Meena Bazaar, the ancient market that is a storehouse of shops selling paans, burqas, caps and pictures of famous Islamic religious places. The bazaar is said to have travelled from Agra to Delhi when emperor Shah Jahan shifted his capital here in 1638.
Shop No. 256 is of very special significance to many and could well be in the Guinness Book of World Records soon. Shah Music Centre is a one-stop shop for music lovers. It houses one of the biggest collections of records from all over the world, which are stacked in every nook and cranny of the shop. The owners of this fascinating collection are Akbar Shah and his son Zafar Shah. They are acknowledged as the largest private collectors of old records, be it the 78 or 45 rpm or even the long-playing variety.
“We even have rare four inch records, which were invented long before the conventional ones. We also have most of the labels ever produced in the world,” says Akbar whose father Syed Ahmed Shah started this extraordinary collection way back in 1928.
Their love for music has spilled over to the third generation and today, Akbar’s son Zafar Shah looks after the family business which has thrived for well over seven decades. In the thirties and forties some of the leading Indian companies producing vinyl included HMV, Young India, New Theatres, Lahore Music and Hindustan Records. The 78 rpm cost 12 annas, a princely sum at that time which could buy you eight kilos of meat or a good gabardine shirt, as Zafar puts it. “My grandfather would buy two copies of each new release. One for his collection and one for his listening pleasure.”
By the early forties Syed Ahmed Shah had earned such fame that even leading music companies began consulting him on the kind of records they should release.
Amazingly, he could accurately predict the number of copies a record would sell by listening to it. When he died in 1977 Syed Ahmed Shah had a formidable collection that he passed on to his son Akbar Shah who proved to be a worthy inheritor. He not just painstakingly catalogued the records, but also embarked on a collecting spree which took him to Teheran, Amsterdam, London, Ankara, Lahore, Karachi, Barbados, Singapore and Hong Kong. He snapped up records from private collectors, old curio shops and even junk markets. It’s no surprise that both father and son are veritable encyclopedias of popular music. “You name a song and we’ll pull out the record,” says Zafar proudly. Besides, they have practically all the film and non-film songs of Mukesh, Talat Mahmood, Lata Manges-hkar, Kishore Kumar and many others. They have even private numbers of Zohra Bai and Shanta Apte. Among the ghazals, they possess those of Begum Akhtar, Malika Pukh-raj, Kamla Zharia, Shanta Apte, Naseem Bano and Shamshad Bai (Saira Bano’s grandmother) who used to sing in 1930s.
The collection includes Suraiya’s songs from her first film Natak, Naushad’s first film Prem Nagar, O P Nayyar’s first film Aasman, Ravi’s first film Vachhan and Dilip Kumar first film Jwar Bhata. They possess songs from the film Saiyaan (1951) which did not hire a music company and whose songs were recorded directly from the soundtrack.
Time and again, the father-son duo have lent records from their collection to several music companies. In 1991-92 HMV re-copied 80 songs which even the company didn’t have in its library. That’s because the Shah family has preserved a copy of every disc HMV has ever produced. Due credit was given to Akbar Shah on the re-copied records. For music lovers the Shahs have acquired a legendary status. Obviously it is for a very valid reason that Akbar and Zafar Shah are today fondly called ‘Recordwale Shahenshah’.