Posted:
Just reading this article in which the writer states that when he met RD Burman, he told him that he didn't care for Mohammed Rafi. The article (and the series that Rediff did on Rafi) also suggest that this was one of the reasons that Rafi was sidelined in the 70s and Kishore Kumar ruled that decade.
The articles also discuss how Talat Mahmood and Mukesh didn't get as much as work as the music directors wanted to give them, because the actors in the films insisted on having Rafi as their playback singer in the late 50s/60s.
"I recall Pancham, in his Santa Cruz music room, pointedly telling me that he never really cared for Rafi. So did Anil Biswas and C Ramchandra, at times even Salil Chowdhury, not vibe with Rafi. Still these master composers were 'the Rafi exceptions'.
Such was this tenor's Lata-matching dominance, through 1959 to 1969, that even Kishore-rediscoverer S D Burman firmly pitched for Rafi --- on Dev Anand, if you please --- with the 1958 Kala Pani classic, Hum Bekhudi Mein (set in Chhayanat)."
http://www.rediff.com/movies/report/how-mohammed-rafi-regained-his-confidence/20141224.htm
http://www.rediff.com/movies/2006/aug/21rafi.htm
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