Mumbai, October 01: Amit Kumar, in the process of putting together a tribute to his father, Kishore Kumar, talks about being unable to deal with the negativity in Bollywood….
Amit and Sumit Kumar have planned seven concerts across India as a tribute to their father — Kishore Kumar. The concerts will be held in December. The theme song Ek tha Kishore, unke do kishore has been written by Leena Chandavarkar.
Giving us details, Amit says, “I’ve named the show Do Kishore. The concert will be an emotional, nostalgic tribute to our father. It will mark my first performance with Sumit on stage. The songs will be accompanied by the rarest of rare anecdotes about my father’s life. He invokes an amazing amount of warm anecdotes. He was one of a kind. It will be accompanied by interviews with those who worked with my father — from Ashok Kumar to Lata Mangeshkar to Amitabh Bachchan.” The anecdotes, rare footage and interviews featuring Kishore Kumar have been edited by Sumit. Amit added, “We need to rehearse real hard for this. We’re planning seven shows in all, two each in Mumbai and Kolkata and one in Delhi, Bangalore, and Chennai. The first concert will be held in Mumbai.”
Amit is also planning a private album. He admits, “I know the market for private albums is bleak. But I want to do this on my own terms. The songs, compositions and lyrics will be the way I want them. No compromises.”
It is said that Amit played hard to get and therefore, disappeared from the music scene. He says, “That’s just malicious talk. I grew up in an atmosphere where I thought it would be easy for me to make it. I soon discovered otherwise. I was expected to sing like my father all my life. I refused, while my father’s imitators raced ahead.”
What does he have to say about his Bade achche lagte hain from Balika Badhu being used in Main Aur Mrs Khanna? “It’s a 30-year-old song,” says Amit, “I’m glad it’s still remembered. Now I have to sing it in all my live shows. The song gave me my second chance in Mumbai. I lost the first chance when I lost Bobby. I ran away from Mumbai because I was nervous. My father told producers in Mumbai that I wasn’t interested. I went back to Kolkata to do stage shows. My father saw one of them and insisted I was ready for Mumbai. Then I came back. That was the era of my songs Love Story, Teri Kasam, Romance … I’ve been singing for 40 years.” He adds, “Yaad aa rahi hai from Love Story got me my one and only Filmfare award. It was given to me by my father.”
So, why has he stayed away from Bollywood’s music scene? He explains, “When my father expired in 1987, I was on top of the heap. Then, the negativity started. I could never get used to it. My father had to go through a lot of humiliation in the beginning. Maybe I was not as courageous. Many music directors would rehearse songs with me and finally record in another voice. This happened at a time when I had hits in Tridev and Tezaab. I was hurt. I decided to stay away. Asha Bhosleji told me I had to face it. But I couldn’t. The media blamed me for being arrogant. But it’s the politics in Mumbai that drove me away.”
Talking about jumpstarting his career, Amit says, “That era when Mohd Rafi, Mukesh, Kishore Kumar and the Mangeshkar sisters ruled playback singing, is over. Nowadays, it’s not possible to live off playback singing alone.”
Amit is very proud of his younger brother. He says, “Sumit is a computer wizard and a born musician. And he has a sweet voice. He sang the remix version of Bachna ae haseeno. But that was a gimmick fusing my father’s voice with Sumit’s.”
He brightens up while talking about R D Burman as he says, “I used to hang around with him for hours. He loved me a lot and that wasn’t because I was Kishoreda’s son. We were on the same wavelength. He had a great fascination for American jazz and we used to exchange long-playing records. I was like his family member. Panchamda once composed 12 songs for a composer. The ones he thought were from his heart were rejected. That’s the entertainment industry for you.”
—Agencies