KHAIRPUR: Singers, poets and musicians bemoaned on Monday that Sindhi music is on the decline and the biggest blame for it goes to private television channels.

Speaking at a musical evening with singer Ghulam Ali Sandelo here on Sunday, poet and station director of Radio Pakistan Khairpur Kousar Buriro urged singers to raise a “Save Singers Fund.”

He said that such a fund would greatly help the singers who were facing abject poverty and dying of different diseases. A singer should contribute the amount he received on sale of a cassette or CD to the fund, he stressed.

He called upon minister of culture to revise list of singers and artistes who deserved financial assistance and provide them stipends. The vacuum created by the death of Ustad Manzoor Ali Khan and other Sufi singers had not been filled yet, he said.

Mumtaz Bukhari and Shoukat Noonari said that special attention should be paid to Sindhi music and the new singer should follow singing style of Ustad Khursheed Ali Khan, Mai Begum Faqirani and other legendary singers.

They said that Ghulam Ali Sandelo was son of Ustad Laung who was a well known singer and musician of his time.

Singer Abdul Ghafoor Soomro said that Ghulam Ali started his career by singing Ghazals and later he switched to Kafi which was an original Sindhi style of singing.
Source: Dawn
Date:4/6/2010