A rare collection an English song sung by Mohammed Rafi-(December 24, 1924 -- July 31, 1980), was a legendary Indian playback singer whose career spanned four decades. He won 5 National Awards and 6 Filmfare Awards. In 1967, he was honoured with the Padma Shri by the Government of India.
Rafi was also capable of singing Bhajans and Qawwalis. He sang in many Indian languages including Hindi, Konkani, Urdu, Bhojpuri, Oriya, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Sindhi, Kannada, Gujarati, Maghi, Mathili and Assamese . He also recorded a few English and Persian songs.
Mohammed Rafi was born the youngest of six sons of Hajji Ali Mohammad at Kotla Sultan Singh, a village near Amritsar in Punjab (British India). Rafi, whose nickname was Pheeka, started singing by imitating chants of a fakir in his village. In 1935-36, Rafi's father moved to Lahore, and the rest of the family followed later. Rafi's family owned a men's salon in Lahore's Noor Mohalla. It was his brother-in-law Mohammed Hameed who spotted the talent in Rafi and encouraged him. Rafi learnt classical music from Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan, Pandit Jiwanlal Matto and Firoze Nizami.
Rafi's first public performance came at the age of 13, when he was allowed to sing at a concert featuring K. L. Saigal.In 1941, Rafi, under Shyam Sunder, made his debut as a playback singer in the duet 'Soniye nee, Heeriye nee' with Zeenat Begum in the Punjabi film Gul Baloch (t.