Enkayaar, Bollywood Trade News Network

It indeed is fortuitous that when Amitabh Bachchan displayed for the first time his prowess in expressing his ability to play with verse with aplomb in Yash Chopra's KABHIE KABHIE he is rendering his twenty-fifth song in his nephew's film BHOOTNATH. It indeed has been a journey where the numbers of songs have been very less, but if it were to be viewed from the success rates, most of his songs have hit the bull's eye and he would be one of the rare stars who has had such flirtation with song singing in his illustrious career. No other star in the modern times had this long sojourn and affair with a singing career as Amitabh Bachchan is having it right now.

His real singing career began with MR. NATWARLAL, which had his baritone voice flowing in the form of narrative of a bard, and this song still finds a place in various billboard collections made of the songs about children. However, he displayed his finesses in crooning non-sense lyrics with aplomb in AMAR AKBAR ANTHONY and such was its popularity that he went to develop it as a full-fledged dialogue based narrative in various films be it MAHAAN, YARAANA and its acme was achieved in NAMAKHALAL.

His singing career however took a downward slide with JAADUGAR and TOOFAN and after these two films he did not sing for quite a long time. In between, in MAIN AZAAD HOON he experimented with singing inspiration songs and his song " Itne Baaju Itne Sar is considered to be one of the better songs in his repertoire. He was also the second star who experimented with crooning to his beloved on a phone, first time it was in MAHAAN and second time it was in BAGHBAAN, Sunil Dutt being the first man to do so. While his experimentation in MAHAAN did not meet with a success BAGHBAAN's success gave a new lease of life to his singing career.

To him lies the credit of having rendered a song on Holi in SILSILA, which is a must in all the Holi functions all over the country, and no other song on Holi has been a hit across different generations as has been the outreach and immense popularity of this song.

The rendition style of songs has a distinct earthy favour and an uncanny resemblance to the way his father Dr. Harivansh Rai Bachchan used to sing his magnum opus 'Madhusala'. This is the differentiator and probably has been the key factor in providing him with such a long career in singing with panache.