Before Jagjit and Chitra Singh, ghazal on record was a classical art respectfully preserved. After them, it was the sound of a million living rooms. The husband and wife duo modernised the form, guitar and gentle strings around the traditional core, voices intertwined rather than solo, and in doing so created the most collected ghazal catalogue on vinyl. These are the records, ranked the way our own shelf ranks them.
The Unforgettables, and the revolution
The 1976 album known as The Unforgettables is the hinge of modern ghazal: arrangements a pop listener could enter, poetry a purist could respect, and the two voices in conversation. It sold like film music, which ghazal simply did not do before, and it opened the door every 1980s ghazal star walked through. Our EMI copy of this landmark sits in the crates alongside the wider run of their duet albums, like Saath-Saath, whose title announced the duo's entire premise: together.
The live records, where the form breathes
Everything we wrote in our ghazal collecting guide about live albums applies double here. Jagjit's stagecraft, the asides, the couplet repeated because the audience demanded it, the harmonium filigree between verses, made their concerts the genre's definitive experience, and the concert LPs are the definitive artefacts.
The summit is the Come Alive double set, the most prized ghazal record in our shop: a full concert evening across four sides, the duo at their peak, intimacy somehow intact at hall scale. Beside it sits their own Live at Royal Albert Hall, the London document from the same storied stage where Asha Bhosle recorded hers. Live ghazal records surface rarely and sell first; when one appears, decide quickly.
The film and poetry projects
Their soundtrack and songbook work rounds out the shelf, from film assignments like the Tum Laut Aao score in our crates, a first-pressing copy, to the poet-centred albums where a single lyricist's work gets full-length treatment. These projects show the duo's range beyond the duet formula and often trade below the famous titles, which makes them the value end of the catalogue.
Chitra Singh and Jagjit Singh
Come Alive (in a Live Concert with)
₹18,000
Jagjit Singh & Chitra Singh
The Unforgettables
₹4,050
Collecting notes
- Condition is doubly critical. Ghazal lives in quiet passages; buy play-graded copies or from sellers who grade honestly. A grade step you would forgive on disco is audible here.
- The doubles must be complete. Concert sets need both discs and the gatefold; incomplete copies trade far below whole ones.
- EMI originals versus represses follow the usual catalogue-number logic; the boom-era demand meant heavy repressing, so check numbers before paying original prices.
- Chitra's solo passages are the connoisseur's test. Her voice retired from public life after family tragedy; the records are where it remains, and collectors increasingly prize the albums that feature her most.
Why the hunt is worth it
Few catalogues in Indian music offer this combination: historically pivotal, emotionally inexhaustible, and still affordable at the entry level while the summit pieces appreciate. Start with a studio duet album, save for a live set, and let the poetry do the rest. Our current holdings are in the shop; the Come Alive set, as long as it lasts, heads the ghazal shelf.
