Talk:Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

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Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is truly a phenomenal artist who deserves all the accolades and praises heaped in him. HOWEVER:

1. He said he had a dream in which his father (also a singer) appeared (shortly after his death) encouraging him to sing at a shrine. Definitely not Allah but his father in a dream.

2. He was not the first South Asian singer to be heard by western audiences. Before that you have people such as Ravi Shankar and their touring group.


Two comments (added 3/29/05):

1) There are many different versions of the dream story (although I've never heard one featuring Allah).

2) "Singer" and "Musician" are not synonymous. It is probably correct that Nusrat was the first Indo-Pak singer to be widely heard by Western audiences.

Contents

[edit] Dream story

I have taken out the dream story (see discussion above) in an edit performed on April 14. Will put a more authentic version of the story back in later, as I continue to work on the page. Sarabseth 00:56, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Stub?

Surely we have risen above stub-hood already? After all, the official definition is "A stub is a very short article, generally of one paragraph or less."

It's true that the article can, should and hopefully will be substantially expanded, but it doesn't sound right to call it a stub. Sarabseth 01:29, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] revision by 67.180.61.179 on 5/21

Reverted to previous because:

1) Copyrighted material hosted without authorization may not be linked (right?).

2) Without the song excerpts, the material that was added essentially just duplicates the material under Qawwali.

Sarabseth 01:57, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] reverted it back

Reverted it back because using song clips in this way is fair use under the copyright laws.

[edit] request to 67.180.61.179

If you remember where you read about Nusrat listening to commercials etc. could you please post the reference here?

Also, it's not clear what you mean by the last sentence "He would match that with songs in his repotioure.". Could you please clarify that in the entry?

Thanks! Sarabseth 12:22, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That I believe was from an interview with the lady who was the head of the ethnomusicology department of the university of seattle. What I meant by the last scentence was that he would figure out which chord progressions were most used in the popular songs, and find songs in his repotioure that used those same chord progressions.

The idea being that he would then play those songs in his concerts in that country? Sarabseth 18:51, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that would be the idea.

[edit] Dream story removed twice this week

69.194.181.141 added this story on 9/11. I removed it with the comment "Removing apocryphal story".

69.194.181.141 has added it back again on 9/12, with no discussion or comment. I have removed it again., with the comment "removed apocryphal story (see Talk)".

There are many different versions of many different dream stories floating around. It's not at all clear whether any of the basic stories are true, and if so, which is the authentic version.

If 69.194.181.141 wants to add the story back, they should first sort out the issue here (in Talk) before adding it into the article. They could start by responding to the following questions:

1) What is the source of the story?

2) How come on 9/11 his father's funeral was 16 days after the dream, and on 9/12 it became 40 days? What is the source of these "facts"?

Sarabseth 13:43, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Nusrat must have told this dream story to interviewers on more than one occasion. If it verifiably came from his mouth, it is notable. If someone could find and cite such a reference and add it to the article that would be great. If there were different versions of the story then state this in the paragraph describing the dream. Nobody will know whether he really had such a dream or made it up, but if he said it then it is worthy of inclusion in the article. Badagnani 22:59, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that *is* the point. Did he say it, or did someone else just make it up? Sarabseth 12:39, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I did a Google search for "Nusrat" and "dream" and "interview" and this was one of the first things that came up. Maybe this will help. [1] Badagnani 17:59, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Good work! Why don't you add it back to the article please? Sarabseth 01:41, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

The thing is, the interviewer seems to be putting words in Nusrat's mouth, by saying something like "Now you had this dream when you were 16, right?", and Nusrat doesn't really address it. Wish there were an interview in which Nusrat states the dream as he recalls it. Other versions state that he dreamed that he'd perform at the shrines of Ajmer in India but I'm not sure if this is a related dream or the same one. I'd prefer if a person with more qawwali expertise followed up on this  :) Badagnani 01:48, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Here is the story as it appears in the liner notes of the album 'Devotional and Love Songs' (a WOMAD production for REALWORLD 1992, previously released by Oriental Star Agencies Ltd in 1988): "The Khan family have been developing the art of Qawwali for over six centuries. Nusrat himself, however, had no intention of becomming a Qawwal. He only decided to sing after a recurring dream convinced him this was the path to follow. He dreamt he was singing at the famous shrine of Hazrat Khawaja Moin-ud-Din at Ajmer in India. At first he believed it to be absurd - no Qawwal had ever been allowed to sing inside this most famous of Muslim shrines. He was sufficiently persuaded, however, that he should follow in his father's footsteps - and he became leader of the Qawwali Party in 1971. Astonishingly enough, Nusrat's dream proved to be true. In 1979 when the singer and his Party visited the famous shrine as pilgrims, Nusrat was invited to sing - the very first Qawwal to have received this honour." MatthewStevenCarlos 17 October 2005 12:08pm EDT

This is a different dream story from the one that Badagnani came up with on Sep 15. (Check out the link). This is why I had said "There are many different versions of many different dream stories floating around." And even though it is there in the liner notes, and RealWorld is a respectable label, I still wouldn't rush to accept this dream story as authentic. In other words, I still feel: "It's not at all clear whether any of the basic stories are true, and if so, which is the authentic version." I've read some real howlers in liner notes to Nusrat's cds before. And the provenance of this liner note story is not at all clear. What was the source of the story? Who did the writer hear it from? Sarabseth 15:11, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Note, on the first documentary "world music portraits, nusrat fateh ali khan", released by shanchie (the best doc on nusrat in my opinion), there is an actual video interview with nusrat where he says the dream story as follows: After his dad died he didn't want to sing, but he dreamt that he was in a shrine he had never seen before and was singing alongside his dad, and awoke singing. He described the shrine to Mubarik Ali Khan who said it was the shrine where Fateh Ali Khan would always sing (not "no qwuallis had ever sung there before") in Ajmer. The "visionary" part was that he envisioned the shrine without actually ever haveing been there, supposedly. He took this as a sign to keep on singing.

I would suggest that as it is clear and definitive that a dream strongly figured into the choice for Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (now several people have cited Nusrath Fateh Ali Khan mentioning it himself) to pursue the Qawwali path some mention of the dream be made in the main article with a statement that there are multiple versions from several respectable sources although absolute verification of any is illusive. I would also forward that however 'fanatical' (= "undoubtedly the world's biggest qawwali freak") Sarabseth is about Qawwali .. Wikipedia is a *communal* venture .. and therefore what Sarabseth is or is not comfortable with is not the final arbitor for the content of the Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan entry. MatthewStevenCarlos 06 November 2005

I don't see how I'm being fanatical here. I don't see how I have set myself up as any kind of final arbiter.
I put up the topic for discussion on this page. We seem to have reached a consensus that only an authentic/validated version of the dream story should be included in the article. If you read the discussion above you will see that I invited Badagnani to add the version he had discovered on Sep 15, but he wasn't comfortable doing so as he felt it wasn't sufficiently authenticated. You will also see that it's not elusive any more. From the info posted by 68.127.202.211 on nov 4 (the entry just before yours) it is clear that the documentary cited there has Nusrat describing the story in his own words. Now all it needs is for someone to write up that version.
What 69.194.181.141 did was just re-insert the same version he/she had posted earlier, without paying the least attention to the discussion on this page. If anyone is being arbitrary and unilateral, it's probably 69.194.181.141 and not me.
May I respectfully suggest that next time you want to slam someone you first take the time to make sure what the facts are, before passing judgement? Sarabseth 12:46, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
It is great that someone has found a first-hand account of the dream story. I agree that some new text should be added to the article to reflect this. (I haven't seen the film, or else I would give it a shot.) Also, this film should be added to the filmography. Badagnani 19:35, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Audio files

The sounds never worked for me, no matter how I tried to open them or with what program. Maybe that's why they were removed? Badagnani 18:02, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Maybe; it would have been helpful if the person who removed them had stated the reason.
They can be played using Audacity (free download at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/). I don't know what other players work with ogg files. Sarabseth 14:19, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Its wikipedia policy to only have .ogg files. I will get around to putting the files back up since there was no explanation why they were taken down.

[edit] Films and Video

This concerns the changes I made on 9/23.

1) There are a very large number of VHS videotapes, VCDs and DVDs which contain live performance footage by Nusrat. We can't possibly list them all. Doesn't make sense to list just two. That being said, the JVC video is not widely known, so I'm preserving the information here:

  • The JVC Video Anthology of World Music and Dance (1990). Video 14 (of 30) (South Asia IV). Produced by Ichikawa Katsumori; directed by Nakagawa Kunikiko and Ichihashi Yuji; in collaboration with the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka. [Tokyo]: JVC, Victor Company of Japan; Cambridge, Massachusetts: distributed by Rounder Records. (Features two long performances by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Party.)

2) It seems unnecessary to have a separate sub-category just for one link because it happens to contain video clips. There are a bunch of links. Some sites contain only text, some have audio files, some have video. There's probably no point separating out sub-categories unless there are several sites to put into a given sub-category. The fact that this link takes you to video clips is there in the entry in any case.

Sarabseth 13:10, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

It is incorrect to state that the JVC series is not well known. The 30-volume series is widely known, a standard item used in most North American courses on world music, in dozens if not hundreds of university libraries.
I disagree about not including the two important films which were blanked from the filmography section. They are not simply "footage" of Nusrat, they are extended concert films. People should not be prevented from the knowledge of how to find these items. I'm not aware of the "very large" number of other commercially released/available concert films of Nusrat but I suspect "very large" is an exaggeration, unless you're speaking of South Asian releases that aren't available worldwide. Yes, let's list all that are known/available. I don't think Nusrat would disapprove of this!  :) Badagnani 20:43, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

The JVC series may be well known in academic circles. It is certainly not well known to even hard-core Nusrat fans. I know several people who have dedicated themselves to collecting, or at least hearing and watching, everything released by Nusrat. And none of them had even heard of this JVC video. And even if it is in hundreds of university library collections, it is still not widely available in the sense of being available to the common man.

--"Important", unfortunately, is a subjective label.

--When I said "VHS videotapes, VCDs and DVDs which contain live performance footage by Nusrat", I did mean full-length concert "films", usually running two hours or so.

--And no, I'm not talking just about South Asian releases (although to be realistic, these days everything is available worldwide). For example, OSA (Nusrat's UK label) has 21 videotapes and 13 DVDs, which can be ordered online from anywhere in the world. All of these are "extended concert films". An Indian label, Nupur, has several VCDs and DVDs too. So I don't think "very large" was an exaggeration. (BTW, it is usually not considered polite to accuse someone of exaggeration. So, as a general practice, one should refrain from doing so if one is totally unaware of the facts.)

--Finally, a question. Is there perhaps some dissonance between the statement that these two films are important and widely known, and the statement that deleting the entries means people are being "prevented from the knowledge of how to find these items"?

Instead of "re-adding" the deleted entries, may I suggest that the grown-up way to resolve this disaggreement would have been to let other people chime in with their input and then go with the majority opinion?

In any case, since you have "re-added" them, I'll leave them there and let people voice their opinion, and we can take it from there.

Sarabseth 12:13, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

The JVC series isn't generally available in stores because it's 30 volumes, but I just checked WorldCat and the series is in 450 libraries (mostly North American ones). In addition to university libraries it's also in many city public libraries as well. If you don't have access to WorldCat let me know where you live and I'll let you know the nearest library that has it, if you are interested. The Nusrat and Party performances are excellent and beautifully shot; there is a "Hamd" and another title I can't remember, probably about 40 minutes total, a multi-camera stage performance filmed in Japan, the best I have seen. The OSA films sound good; I'm not familiar with those but probably a link or filmography entry should be listed for these, perhaps collectively rather than individually if space is of such great concern. Some rock "supergroups" like The Rolling Stones have enormous discographies/filmographies that have their own Wikipedia articles, and their music is not as spiritually redeeming (to most)! :) The more information about how to find Nusrat's music that is available, the better; from what I have read, Nusrat was very enthusiastic about his music (and the messages contained in it) becoming better known around the world (even going so far as to allow his music to be "remixed"), and this article is a great way to do that. Badagnani 18:52, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

"Hamd" is not really a title; it's just a category label (there's a discussion of Qawwali categories in Qawwali for anyone who is interested).

My guess would be that the two Nusrat songs on this video are a subset of the songs on a two volume cd titled "Qawwali: The Vocal Art of the Sufis" that was recorded on Sep. 20 1987 and released by JVC, Japan (a studio recording, as far as I know). If you still have access to the video, could you check the songs against the following list:

Qawwali: The Vocal Art Of The Sufis, Vol. I

1. Nami Danam

2. Allah Muhammad Char Yaar

3. Data Saheb De Daware

4. Yadaan Vichhde Sajan Diyaan Aiyaan

Qawwali: The Vocal Art Of The Sufis, Vol. II

1. Allah Hoo

2. Yaad-e-Nabi Ka Gulshan

3. Haq Ali Ali

4. Ho Karam Ki Nazar

Thanks for the offer, but on Nusrat matters, I don't let the grass grow under my feet. I have already located the nearest copy of the video, and should be able to watch it for myself early next week.

Returning to the Nusrat article, I don't see why space should be a concern. I also don't see why these two films should be accorded a special status over any of the others, just because they happen to be two Nusrat films you like, or just because they happen to be widely available in university libraries in North America. My original point was intended to be that either we should have a complete filmography or none. Picking just two films tends to impart a subjective flavor to the entry. If someone is willing to put in the time and effort to assemble a complete Nusrat filmography, that would be great. Whether it's part of the Nusrat article or a separate article probably doesn't matter a whole lot.

Sarabseth 19:39, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

What you write makes a lot of sense. The only point I would raise is that Wikipedia articles are a cumulative process and aren't really ever complete (although they can get close). Many of the articles I've begun start as stubs, and people gradually add to them, a process I enjoy very much. Discographies and filmographies, for Nusrat and musicians of other styles, usually aren't ever complete but one can add to them little by little. As far as Nusrat is concerned I filled in the gaps with videos I knew of and others can do the same. If the section gets too large (as with the Rolling Stones), the discography/filmography can be moved into a new article. I have no agenda about privileging films I know about over ones I don't; like you, I'd very much like to know about other ones. Please let us know what you find out about those video tracks; I think you are probably right that those sessions were done for both audio CD and video. Badagnani 19:52, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Update after watching:
It is indeed a studio recording. The hamd is "Ya Haiyo Ya Qayyuum (14:56)", which is not on Qawwali: The Vocal Art Of The Sufis. Then there is a manqabat: "Ho Karam Ki Nazar" (16:20). This *is* on Qawwali: The Vocal Art Of The Sufis, but the CD version is 12:31. My first impression on hearing the manqabat was that I have never heard this version before (but it's always possible that more careful listening and comparing to other versions will prove me wrong). Sarabseth 12:54, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

In case anyone feels like adding the Nupur Audio VCDs and DVDs the link for their web page is http://nupuraudio.com/titlesCart.asp?CategoryId=DVD&CategoryTitle=img/DVD/Head.gif Sarabseth 11:51, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tributes: changes made on 9/24

I have removed the "audio clip" and "photo" that were there at the end of this entry. Those links made it sound too much like a promotional plug for "Brook's Qawwali Party". The link to the band's web page is still there. No doubt all the readers who are intrigued by this qawwali jazz band will follow the link, and will be able to check out the audio clips and photos for themselves.Sarabseth 19:59, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

> All the samples are instrumental, but in their live performances they sing a little too?

There are vocals in "Mast Mast" and "Allah Hu" (last and third to last selections in "music" section), and also wordless vocals in the alap and last minute of "Man Kunto Maula." Badagnani 20:14, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ishq Anokhadi Peedh

Has anyone heard (or heard of) this song by Nusrat? I believe it is a qawwali, but I could be wrong. Thanks! Sarabseth 11:47, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization

Do the words qawwali and qawwal need to be capitalized every time they occur in the article? I would have thought that you capitalize Qawwali the first time, and then revert to lower case after that. Sarabseth 02:17, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tributes: request to vinaykurup

Could you please add in the context in which Eddie Vedder's remarks were made? Thanks! Sarabseth 12:39, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Persian blog - video entry

Please follow format of other entries and be specific about what video content is available on the site. Sarabseth 12:29, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New tribute band link

This new link was just added:

I haven't watched the video, but it may be a parody rather than a tribute. If someone watches it, can you please correct the description, if necessary? --Sarabseth 13:26, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Opening sentence: musician or singer?

I think it's better to say musician rather than singer, since a major part of Nusrat's magic lies in his compositions. But the sentence construction doesn't work if you just change "singer of qawwali" to "qawwali musician". Can someone try to to fix it? --Sarabseth 11:40, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tribute Quote Grammar

Should "I idolize Nusrat, his a god to" be "I idolize Nusrat, he's a god too." ? --Abhijitpai 03:46, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

I've tagged this article with an unreferenced and inapt tone tags because there is a lot of unreferenced and unsourced info in this article. I'll also work on it because it needs a big cleanup. A smarter picture would also be nicer. Ekantik talk 01:29, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Smarter? --Sarabseth 03:20, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Yep, a nicer picture. By the way why did you revert about Nusrat's Bollywood contributions? If references are necessary then they can be provided, but I didn't think it would be necessary to cite sources for the obvious i.e.: what any good Nusrat fan would already know. It is certainly not POV. Ekantik talk 04:11, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I didn't revert. Just took out the language about entering a new phase of his career; that was the POV part. Everything else is still there. --Sarabseth 05:10, 16 December 2006 (UTC) nusrat fateh ali khan saheb is my roll model he is in my heart

Ah I see, guess I read too fast, heh. Sorry! Ekantik talk 01:57, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
I apologise, I'll get around to this article soon. Ekantik talk 06:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discography?

I was wondering, is there any point in adding a discography section to list all of his released albums and such? Obviously there must be thousands, but the one consolation is that we may not have to include reissues and posthumous releases? It'll be a big job of course. Ekantik talk 02:35, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tribute song by Justin Timberlake

Can anyone confirm that this is true: "Justin Timberlake also wrote a tribute song about Nusrat , called "You're Gone". This song is also unreleased." --Sarabseth 21:24, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

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