 "Film music doyen Manna Dey no more")
The music industry in India mourned the demise of legendary singer Manna Dey on Thursday. He was 94. While the singer is no more, his legacy continues to be with his admirers in the form of his songs.
Dey started his playback career in 1943 with the film Tamanna and went on to sing till 2006, when he recorded his last song, Duniyawaalo kee nahee kuchh bhee khabar, for a movie named Umar. He recorded more than 3,500 songs across Bengali, Odiya, Assamese, Marathi, Gujrati and Malayalam, apart from Hindi. In a career spanning nearly 64 years, Dey collaborated with a little over 100 music directors from the Indian film industry, also turning an independent music composer in Hindi films with Maha Poojaa in 1954.
Dey formed one of what is called the golden singing quartet of Indian cinema, the others being Kishore Kumar, Mukesh and Mohammed Rafi. He is remembered for his versatility and voice quality.
He had a longstanding association with music label Saregama from 1953 to 2006. The music house still owns the intellectual property rights and copyrights to most of his songs. He sang 2,264 songs with Saregama, of which 1,260 were in Hindi. Dey has to his credit many unforgettable melodies such as Laga chunri mein daag, Puccho na kaise, Janak janak tori baaje and Aja aanam madhur chandani mein hum, among others.
According to a former managing director of a music company, the rights sold for an artist such as Dey would be very handsome. “The agreement for each artist is different but royalty for an artist of the stature of Manna Dey would be somewhere in the range of five to 10 per cent of the total sales via various methods,” he said.
According to a veteran from the music industry, Saregama sells nearly 2,000 to 2,500 compact discs of compilations of Dey's songs. Of these, 1,000 to 1,500 are Hindi song compilations; the others are regional songs.
“When compared to peers like Rafi or Kishore Kumar, Dey's records’ or CDs’ sales might not seem much but the fact is that the songs he sung have become immensely popular. He was definitely one of the most sellable singers of his times and till date, his popularity among music lovers continues,” reveals the veteran.
He also said the sales of CDs have fallen by almost 30 per cent in the past two years, with the increasing popularity of online platforms for acquiring music. Taking a cue from this trend, Saregama has signed a three-year deal with Sony DADC where the latter has the manufacturing and distribution rights to the physical component of music, namely cassettes and CDs. The music label is targeting the digital space to monetise its large library and has licensed Dey’s songs to platforms like Saavn and iTunes, apart from having an online archive on its own website.
While the exact number of downloads for Dey's songs were unavailable, a company representative from Saregama said his are among the most streamed and frequently downloaded songs from their archives.
SOUND OF NUMBERS
Songs sung by him till date are at least 3,500
He worked with more than 100 music directors
Dey gave his voice to multiple Indian languages like Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada and Assamese
He sang for Saregama 1,260 songs in Hindi
Dey started his playback career in 1943 with the film Tamanna and went on to sing till 2006, when he recorded his last song, Duniyawaalo kee nahee kuchh bhee khabar, for a movie named Umar. He recorded more than 3,500 songs across Bengali, Odiya, Assamese, Marathi, Gujrati and Malayalam, apart from Hindi. In a career spanning nearly 64 years, Dey collaborated with a little over 100 music directors from the Indian film industry, also turning an independent music composer in Hindi films with Maha Poojaa in 1954.
Dey formed one of what is called the golden singing quartet of Indian cinema, the others being Kishore Kumar, Mukesh and Mohammed Rafi. He is remembered for his versatility and voice quality.
He had a longstanding association with music label Saregama from 1953 to 2006. The music house still owns the intellectual property rights and copyrights to most of his songs. He sang 2,264 songs with Saregama, of which 1,260 were in Hindi. Dey has to his credit many unforgettable melodies such as Laga chunri mein daag, Puccho na kaise, Janak janak tori baaje and Aja aanam madhur chandani mein hum, among others.
According to a former managing director of a music company, the rights sold for an artist such as Dey would be very handsome. “The agreement for each artist is different but royalty for an artist of the stature of Manna Dey would be somewhere in the range of five to 10 per cent of the total sales via various methods,” he said.
According to a veteran from the music industry, Saregama sells nearly 2,000 to 2,500 compact discs of compilations of Dey's songs. Of these, 1,000 to 1,500 are Hindi song compilations; the others are regional songs.
“When compared to peers like Rafi or Kishore Kumar, Dey's records’ or CDs’ sales might not seem much but the fact is that the songs he sung have become immensely popular. He was definitely one of the most sellable singers of his times and till date, his popularity among music lovers continues,” reveals the veteran.
He also said the sales of CDs have fallen by almost 30 per cent in the past two years, with the increasing popularity of online platforms for acquiring music. Taking a cue from this trend, Saregama has signed a three-year deal with Sony DADC where the latter has the manufacturing and distribution rights to the physical component of music, namely cassettes and CDs. The music label is targeting the digital space to monetise its large library and has licensed Dey’s songs to platforms like Saavn and iTunes, apart from having an online archive on its own website.
While the exact number of downloads for Dey's songs were unavailable, a company representative from Saregama said his are among the most streamed and frequently downloaded songs from their archives.
SOUND OF NUMBERS
Songs sung by him till date are at least 3,500
He worked with more than 100 music directors
- First Hindi Film Song from the movie Tamanna in 1943
- His last recorded song in Hindi films was for the film Umar in 2006 composed by Shamir Tandon
- Dey turned into an independent music composer in Hindi films with Maha Poojaa in 1954
Dey gave his voice to multiple Indian languages like Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada and Assamese
- Last Bengali album: Thik Chhabir Moto (2006)
He sang for Saregama 1,260 songs in Hindi
- He recorded 611 songs in Bengali films
- He gave his voice to 129 Geet Gazal Bhajans and also to 14 Hindi Rabindra Sangeet