Alamgir is a Pakistani singer and is considered one of the pioneers of the Urdu pop music. His versatile style of singing is inspired by playback singer Ahmed Rushdi and Elvis Presley. Alamgir was born in East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh). His father Farmuzal Haq was a politician and a member of the All India Muslim League. He studied in Mirzapur Cadet College, Tangail, in the province of East Bengal. He briefly studied in B A F Shaheen College in Dhaka. At the age of around 15, he moved to Karachi, West Pakistan to continue his studies at the University of Karachi to finally immigrate to USA.
He settled in the PECHS area of Karachi and started singing in the evenings, around 1970, at a small café called ‘Globe Hotel’ on Tariq Road, Karachi. He was promised Rupees 350 per month plus free dinner. The café was famous for its intellectual gatherings and that is where his potential talent was spotted. Someone from the audience in the hotel liked his style of singing and playing the guitar. So that person told him about a programme on the Pakistan Television Corporation station called Ferozan where the program host Khushbakht Aliya was conducting a show for the youth. He gave his audition, Khushbakht liked his singing and the guitar playing but she had already selected someone else. It just so happened that renowned Pakistani music composer Sohail Rana, was also sitting in the same room who later asked someone to call Alamgir to his car outside the TV station. Sohail Rana said, he liked his (Alamgir’s) guitar playing and asked if he would like to perform as a guitarist for his children’s programme (hum hi hum). This is how Alamgir entered in the formal world of music.
He started singing on the Pakistan Television Corporation TV channel at the beginning of the 1970s, when the people in Pakistan were not yet familiar with the modern Urdu pop music and when western music was generally considered as modern music in Pakistan.
Shair Siddiqui hired him for the first pop musical program ‘SUNDAY KE SUNDAY’, a TV series of Karachi Television in 1973/74 and introduced Alamgir with the song Albela Rahi. It proved to be a hit in 1973 among the youth of the 1970s. There was a time during the 1970s when the music loving boys and girls gathered regularly on the streets near the Karachi Jheel Park to get a glimpse of this new pop singer as he used to travel along in his red sedan in the evening.
Alamgir’s second pop song Pyar hai zindagi ka gehna was also an Urdu translation of a foreign song. He soon became popular among the younger generation in the country. Alamgir is also known for his many renditions of Bengali music. The most notable Bengali song he is known to sing is Aamay Bhashaili Rey.
Rohail Hyatt is a renowned Pakistani record producer, keyboardist, and composer. As record producer Hyatt is largely credited with helping shape and pioneer Western-style rock and pop genres in Pakistan’s music industry. In 1987, Hyatt founded the Vital Signs and released its commercially hit and critically acclaimed album, Vital Signs 1. The first album included the international number-one single “Dil Dil Pakistan“, and “Tum Mil Gaye“, which was composed by Hyatt.
In the following the making of Aamay Bhashaili Rey by Rohail Hyatt is presented. The writer of this song is Jashim Uddin, famous Bengali poet. In this version of the song Alamgir and Fariha Pervez made a fusion over Aamay Bhashaili Rey song with a Pakistani song. Here all the musicians praise the beauty of Bengali folk song. Alamgir despite his fame and glory never forget to uphold the beauty of Bengali folk song. Hats off to this great singer, Alamgir. (For listenning the fusion music please click here).
Source: Wikipedia and YouTube.
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