Big B sings with Rashid Khan

After singing for 30 years in films — his first song was recorded for Mr Natwarlal in 1979 — Amitabh Bachchan has joined vocal forces with a trained and renowned vocalist like Rashid Khan, the singer whom the formidable classical maestro Pandit Bhimsen Joshi had once chosen as his successor.

The coming together of India’s most popular actor and part-time singer with the classical maestro happened for the album Sound Of Peace, dedicated to the victims of Mumbai’s 26/11 terrorist attack. Aadesh Shrivastava, who helmed the project, composed its music and is in the process of finalizing a music video featuring the Big B and Rashid Khan, says the Big B simply swam across Sameer’s words of world peace.

The Big B confirms modestly, “Yes, Rashid Khan and I have sung together. The system of recording these days allows a lot of freedom to sing how one is comfortable. That’s how I managed it.”

The music video, which efforts are on to get Ashutosh Gowariker to direct, will feature the Big B with Rashid Khan and Aadesh Shrivastava. Footage from the barbaric occurrences during 26/11 from 2008 in Mumbai will be interspersed with scenes from 9/11 in the US from 2001 and the London subway bombings of 2005.

Says Aadesh, “We initially planned to make this a Hindi –Urdu album in memory of the 26/11 victims. But we’ve now expanded it into a comment on global terrorism. Mr Bachchan is now in the process of recording an English version of the peace song.”