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.
Background
Mohammed Rafi was the youngest of six brothers. His father was Hajji Ali Mohammad. The family lived in Kotla Sultan Singh, a village near present-day Amritsar in Punjab, India. Rafi, whose nickname was Pheeko, began singing by imitating the chants of a fakir in his village. Rafi's father moved to Lahore in the 1920s where he ran a men's salon in Noor Mohalla in Bhatti Gate.His elder brother, Mohammad Deen, had a friend, Abdul Hameed, (future brother-in-law), who spotted the talent in Rafi in Lahore and encouraged him to sing.
Education
Rafi learnt classical music from Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan, Pandit Jiwan Lal Mattoo and Firoze Nizami.
Career
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.
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.