Six brand new songs of Rafi released

New Delhi, Jan 28 (IANS) After 30 years, six youthful and romantic songs crooned by legendary singer Mohammed Rafi have been released for the first time. The lilting numbers have been compiled in a new album called "The Last Songs" which is described as a 'rare collector's item'.

All the songs have been composed by Chitragupta and were written by Kafeel Aazar.

"'The Last Songs' by Universal Music is a collection of the most precious songs by Mohammad Rafi, the greatest musical legends of all times. I say precious because the songs were hidden from his fans from more than 30 years after being recorded.

"The very fact that they can be heard now, makes it a rare collector's item something that millions of fans across the world would love to hear and own," said Rajeeta Hemwani, vice president, conten-A&R, Universal Music.

In December 1979, Rafi recorded the songs - four in Film Center studio and two in Mehboob Studio with Robin Chatterjee as sound engineer. The next year in July, Rafi died.

The songs were youthful and romantic and have been recovered, restored and digitised by Universal Music.

Rafi, whose career spanned four decades, sang in many Indian languages including Hindi, Urdu, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Sindhi, Kannada, Gujarati and Telugu. He also recorded English and Persian songs.

His first public performance came at the age of 13, when he was allowed to sing at a concert alongside legendary singer K.L. Saigal.

Some of Rafi's hit numbers are "Ae gulbadan, ae gulbadan" ("Professor"), "Chhoo lene do nazuk hothon ko" ("Kaajal"), "Pardah hai pardah" ("Amar Akbar Anthony") and "Dard-e-dil dard-e-jigar" ("Karz").

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