Naushad was conferred the Dadasaheb Phalke Award and the Padma Bhushan in 1981 and 1992 respectively for his contribution to the Hindi film industry.

[8] Naushad Ali was born and raised in Lucknow,[1] a city with a long tradition as a centre of Indian Muslim culture.

As a child, Naushad would visit the annual fair at the Deva Sharif in Barabanki, 25 km from Lucknow, where all the great qawwals and musicians of those days would perform before the devotees.

There he also developed the sense to pick rare musical jewels from the folk tradition of Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Saurashtra during the company's sojourns in those regions.

The travelling players got as far as Viramgam in Gujarat, where they discovered penury, even after selling off theatrical props and musical instruments.

He assisted music director Ustad Jhande Khan who was at the peak of his success those days, at a monthly salary of Rs 40.

[2] His friend, lyricist D. N. Madhok, trusted Naushad's unusual talent for composing music and introduced him to various film producers.

He composed for his first independent film Prem Nagar in 1940 that had a story set in Kutch for which he did a lot of research into the folk music of the area.

Kardar's film Sharda (1942) wherein 13-year-old Suraiya debuted with the song "Panchhi Ja" for the playback for heroine Mehtab.

[2][9] Film expert and author Rajesh Subramanian opines that Kardar productions spent Rupees seventy five thousand in 1944 to make Rattan.

The music by Naushad saheb was such a phenomenal hit that the company earned Rs 3 lacs as royalty from gramophone sales in the first year.

Naushad worked with several lyricists, including Shakeel Badayuni, Majrooh Sultanpuri, D. N. Madhok, Zia Sarhadi, Yusufali Kechery and Khumar Barabankvi.

The songs Naushad composed for the 1988 Malayalam film Dhwani which were sung by P. Susheela & K. J. Yesudas are evergreen superhits that Malayalis do repeatedly listen to even after 3 decades.

Biographical books published are Dastaan-E-Naushad (Marathi) by Shashikant Kinikar; Aaj Gaawat Man Mero (Gujarati); Hindi and Urdu biographical sketches in Shama & Sushma Magazines respectively, titled "Naushad Ki Kahani, Naushad Ki Zubani"; the last one was translated into Marathi by Shashikant Kinikar.

[11] Naushad had requested the Maharashtra State Government to sanction a plot for an institution for promoting Hindustani music.

Naushad was also a respected and published poet and formally launched his book of Urdu poetry entitled Aathwaan Sur ("The Eighth Note") and the Navras label's album titled "Aathwan Sur – The Other Side of Naushad" having 8 ghazals as part of Hounslow's book fair and festival "Bookmela" in November 1998.

Bhairavi (Hindustani) is his favourite Raga[12] Naushad was known for his skillful adaptation of the classical musical tradition for movie songs.

For some movies like Baiju Bawra, he composed all scores in classical raga modes and arranged for the well-known vocalist Amir Khan to be a music consultant for this film.

[2][1] Naushad commented on a pre-release meeting about "Baiju Bawra": "When people heard that the film would be full of classical music and ragas, they protested, 'People will get a headache and they will run away.'

In 2004, a colorized version of the classic Mughal-e-Azam (1960) was released, for which Naushad had the orchestral music specially re-created (in Dolby Digital) by today's industry musicians, while maintaining all the solo vocals from the original soundtrack.

To elaborate, the playback vocals (though not the chorus) recorded four decades ago are mixed with orchestra tracks created in the present millennium.

As Indian film music gradually assumed a Western bend starting in the late 1960s, Naushad came to be considered old-fashioned.