Adil Najam
I suspect that many of our readers have never even heard of – let alone seen a performance by – Faiz Mohammad Baluch. If so, you do not know what you have missed; so watch this video!
This video may look quaint to some, but there was music performance well before there were music videos or the era of MTV or even PTV! There was an entire generation of wonderful (mostly folk) singers in Pakistan whose stage was neither film nor television, but the local mela, the village chopaal, the dera. Like Alam Lohar, Sain Akhtar, Tufail Niazi, and many others, Faiz Baloch belonged to this generation. Their audiences were live and intimate; their sound was rough but authentic; and their performances were unchoreographed but heartfelt. They never mastered the skills of looking into the camera, but they always did look into the eyes of their audiences. Their cues came not from the video director, but from the reactions of their listeners.
I remember listening to a few of these greats as a very young child and I still remember that their was something quite electric about those live performances. Something, that never translated to the television screen. This is why I offer this video hesitantly. It does not really do justice to the magic of Faiz Baloch performing live. His signature song used to be ‘Laila O Laila’ and he would go rather wild with his dance steps (Michael Jackson, make way). The song in this video, is also set to a traditional Baloch tune but is, I think, one of Uxi Mufti’s efforts in the early Bhutto days to create national songs around folk tunes and have them sung by famous folk singers.
It is not a bad song, and you do see the skill of Faiz Baloch as a singer and as a performer here. But it is more stiffled than what I recall. Partly, this may be because there is no audience and this was not a man used to performing to machines. Partly, it may be because he is singing in Urdu here while most of his work was sung in Makrani and Balochi (I think). But despite all this, it is a fascinating performance – note, especially, the dance steps around 2:30 into the video.
I have been watching it repeatedly over the last many days and enjoyed it tremendously. So have my young kids. I hope you do too.
Adil, thanks for the memories. I had never heard this song (“Pakistan Hamara”) but I clearly remember the traditional balochi folk song this seems to be based on. It was called “Naaz Husn”; probably singing the praise of the Beloved’s beauty but that is purely based on my recollection of what i heard in the early 70s & scant knowledge of balochi. (due apologies to any Baloch readers if I am not on the right track)
Thanks to regional tv channels, folk singers are getting a lot of encouragement which is certainly good news
The only folk singer I remember well is Alan Faqeer. His duet with Shaikhi would have to be one of my favourite chidhood songs. It was called Allah Allah Kar Bhaiya. A truly brilliant song. It could be one of the earliest ‘fusion’ songs mixing Sindhi folk with Urdu pop.
They were talented and spiritual people, great folk singers,an inspiration to new comers and greatly missed by all.A great tribute…
I remember in the early to mid 80s the late Didlar Pervaiz Bhatti did punjabi stage shows called “Lok Tamasha” and then “Lok Funkar” from Lahore Station. These shows used to have folk singers like Faiz Baloch and Tufail Niazi and many other unknowns who used to sing and dance in the same fashion as in this video. Dildar Pervaiz Bhatti was an awesome host and one of the funniest and most witty guys on PTV, sadly he left so early. Nice video!
Interesting find. I remember seeing him on TV years ago. Yes, his dance steps are interesting ;-)