25 SONGS BY MEHDI HASSAN:
Mehdi Hassan
By Ustad Ghulam Haider Khan
Now Mehdi Hassan was recognized as the foremost ghazal singer of Pakistan. But a word here about his pronunciation of Urdu words: it was Syed Saleem Gillani, former DG Radio, who taught Mehdi how to keep the words intact and clearly audible even while rendering them in the most complex raags. This is a lesson every ghazal singer, especially one who is trained in classical music, has to learn before he or she can do justice to that poetic form. And it is not easy, especially as the Persian and Arabic words that pepper the vocabulary of the ghazal often come with the un-nasal ‘Aaaa’, the breath-expendnig ‘Hhhay’ and the throat-clogging ‘Qaaf’.