'King of Ghazals' Talat Mahmood was born in a highly cultured but conservative family in Lucknow, India, on Feb. 24, 1924. He was one amongst six children. Talat showed his musical leanings from a very young age and would enjoy sitting through all-night music soiree's listening patiently to some of the biggest names in Indian classical music. Later, for a very short period of time Talat studied music at Marris Music College, before people began noticing his natural singing talent and offers to sing began to pour in.
Talat Mahmood began his music career at the young age of 16 when he began singing the ghazals of Ghalib, Dagh, Mir and Jigar on All India Radio, Lucknow. His voice had a quality distinct from all other singers. HMV was quick to notice this and offered Talat his first disc in 1941, "Sab din ek samaan nahin tha, ban jaoonga kya se kya main, iska to kuch dhyan nahin tha". Indeed how prophetic were these words. Little did Talat know that he was soon to rise to become the greatest name in ghazals on the Indian sub-continent !
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