Daily Times

Alam Lohar is an icon as far as folk music of Punjab is concerned. He knew all the folklore by heart. I have seen him singing poetry of Heer Waris Shah, Saiful Muluk and alike by heart for hours while playing a rhythm on chimta (music tongs). Before proceeding ahead I would narrate an incident of his first entry to Canada. He was stopped by immigration to explain what contraption he held in his hand. He started playing and singing with it. Even the immigration staff could not help but dance to his rhythmic song. He was immediately granted visa to enter the country. Muhammad Alam Lohar was born in Achh, a village in Kharian Tehsil, Gujrat, Punjab, Pakistan in 1928. He was a folk singer and a poet as well. It was British India when Alam Lohar was born in a family of a blacksmith; hence his title Lohar. His family and children now live all around the world with most of them settled in the United Kingdom. His legacy is carried forward by his son Arif Lohar. Alam Lohar is credited with popularising the musical term Jugni. Many singers have laid their hands on singing Jugni but time proved that it originally belongs to Alam. He has rendered Sammi and Yousuf Zulaikhan with exuberance too. Alam Lohar developed a new style of singing the Punjabi Vaar, an epic or folk tale which made him popular when he toured villages and towns in Punjab. He died young in a road accident near ‘Sham Ki Bhattian’ on July 3, 1979 when a heavily loaded truck collided with his vehicle. He was just 51 years old then. He was buried at the outskirts of Lalamusa in Pakistan. Upon the news of his death, then president of Pakistan conferred upon him the Pride of Performance, Pakistan’s highest civil award for arts and theatre.

I met him for the first time in Birmingham, UK where he was settled there in the late 1960s. He was a popular stage performer and used to mesmerise his audience settled in Britain comprising migrants from Gujrat and Mirpur, Azad Kashmir. He was also very popular among Sikh community. There was no end to his rise in popularity back home also. He was seen frequently at Radio Pakistan, Lahore and at Pakistan Television Corporation Centres in Rawalpindi and Lahore. I performed folk songs with him in PTV’s stage show by Uxi Mufti titled ‘Lok Tamasha’. Overall his active singing years were from 1936 to 1979.

At that time, HMV label released his first album when he was just 13’ his album outsold in Punjab in no time as verified by HMV’s 1979 records. Throughout the period from 1950s to 1979 when he died, he ruled as a folk singer in Pakistan in Punjabi and Sufi singing. That was the impression throughout the world where Asians lived. Muhammad Ayyub, CEO, Star Agencies, Birmingham, UK released maximum number of his albums. On my query, he recently said, “An incident I would like to quote. I was sitting in EMI studios in Shahdin Building, Lahore with great Pakistani music maestro Khawaja Khurshid Anwar. He said that he was a big Alam Lohar fan. According to Khawaja Sahib, Alam Lohar was the only Punjabi singer he would have loved to compose music for and produce an album with but sadly his wish never materialised because of Alam Lohar’s unexpected demise”. In many rural villages the local traditional people used to call him ‘Heerah’ meaning diamond. On the song “Dil Wala Dukhra Nahi Kisse Nu Sunaai Da” composed by him, Joginder Pal Singh Ahluwalia, a fan from Indian Punjab observes, “Pakistani singers sing in very sweet and pure Punjabi. Only difference is they write in Urdu and we write in Gurumukhi. Long live Pakistani Punjabi singers.”

Alam Lohar used to sing all his songs on higher notes with a loud and clear voice with a bit of a nasal tone. He gained popularity when there were no television networks and even when it was introduced from Lahore as a pilot programme in 1964; it was in black and white. The only means were stage shows, cassettes and radio broadcasts. Even with these limited means he gained popularity in a certain set of audience in no time. His tours to UK, Canada, Norway, US and Germany in 1970s won him added audience. His PTV music series ‘Ik Lohar Di’ became popular. I also participated in one episode. Recordings used to be in open air. The episode in which I appeared was recorded on Shakar Parian, Islamabad.