Mohammed Rafi

Born - 24 December 1924
Died - 31 July 1980
Achievements - Mohammed Rafi was among the most popular male playback singers in the Indian Bollywood film industry. Mohammed Rafi has sung a number of famous songs like Mere sapnon ki rani, Roohi Roohi with K. L. Saigal for the movie Shahjahan made in 1946, Tera Khilona Toota Balak for film Anmol Ghadi, Yahan Badla Wafa for Jugnu and so on.

Mohammed Rafi was among the most popular male playback singers in the Indian Bollywood film industry. Though he used to sing in various Indian languages such as Hindi, Marathi and Telugu, Mohammed Rafi is primarily remembered by people for all the melodious songs he sang for the Hindi movies. Rafi was born on 24 December 1924 at Kotla Sultanpur, which is a town near Amritsar in undivided region of Punjab. Mohammed Rafi was the son of Hajji Ali Mohammad and was the youngest of his five brothers.

Read on to know more about the biography of Mohammed Rafi, whose nickname used to be Pheeko. Mohammed Rafi's interest in singing began by mimicking the chants of fakirs in his village. Mohammed Rafi's elder brother-in-law, Mohammed Hameed was aware of his interest in music. And it was he who encouraged Rafi to take it up seriously. As such, Rafi started learning Hindustani classical music from Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan, Pandit Jiwanlal Matto and Firoze Nizami.

One day, it so happened that Mohammed Rafi and Hameed, his brother-in-law went to attend a programme of the legendary Bollywood singer-actor, K. L. Saigal. But there was a power failure at the venue of the programme and Saigal simply refused to sing because of this. Hameed seized this opportunity to ask the organizer if Rafi could sing in Saigal's place to pacify the audience. And this became Mohammed Rafi's first performance at the tender age of just 13. Here's more information about the life history of Mohammed Rafi.

It was in the year 1942 that Mohammed Rafi got his first break as playback singer in a Punjabi film, Gul Baloch. This happened because Rafi had got noticed by Bollywood lyricist, Shyam Sunder by then, who gave him an opportunity to sing a duet with Zeenat Begum. And this was followed by an invitation to Mohammed Rafi by the Lahore radio station that offered him a chance to work with them as a permanent singer. Rafi then shifted to Mumbai city in the year in 1944.

Once in Mumbai, Rafi was introduced to some leading film producers such as Abdul Rashid Kardar, Mehboob Khan and actor-director Nazeer by Tanvir Naqvi. This was the beginning of his lustrous career as playback singer in Indian film industry. Mohammed Rafi has sung a number of famous songs like Mere sapnon ki rani, Roohi Roohi with K. L. Saigal for the movie Shahjahan made in 1946, Tera Khilona Toota Balak for film Anmol Ghadi, Yahan Badla Wafa for Jugnu and so on.