Wikipedia
Asha Bhosle: Queen of Bollywood Playback Singers Passes away
Asha Bhosle was ten years old when she recorded her first song. “I was trembling a lot. I didn’t even know what a microphone was,” she recalled.
She soon found out and went on to enter Guinness World Records as the most recorded singer in history, with an estimated 12,000 songs. Most were recorded for Bollywood movies as she became the queen of Indian “playback singing” in which actors lip-synced on screen to her voice.
In Hollywood, such ghost singers remain largely anonymous, the vocal equivalent of stunt men or women. Yet in the Indian film industry, playback singers are superstars, at least as famous as the actors who “borrow” their voices, and Bhosle sold millions of records under her own name.
Her cultural reach expanded beyond Bollywood when she was celebrated in Cornershop’s tribute Brimful of Asha, which was remixed by Fatboy Slim and went to No 1 in the UK singles chart in 1998.
Its lyric, “She’s the one that keeps the dream alive/ From the morning, past the evening/ Till the end of the light”, was well targeted, for the Bollywood machine was relentless. “The work is such that if you reach the studio at ten in the morning, you are let go only by ten or 11 at night — sometimes even at eight the next morning,” she said.
Outside the Indian film industry, she also recorded with Boy George, Kronos Quartet, REM’s Michael Stipe and Gorillaz and even dueted with the Australian cricketer Brett Lee on You’re the One for Me. The song was used to promote the 2008 launch of the Indian Premier League, the biggest and richest competition in world cricket.
Her only rival in the pantheon of female Bollywood singers was her older sister Lata Mangeshkar (obituary February 7, 2022). The two had contrasting voices, Mangeshkar noted for her almost classical grace and precision while Bhosle’s calling card was her infectious, dynamic energy and a versatility that meant she was as adept at singing ballads as on up-tempo dance tunes.
For years the Indian media played up stories of a bitter rivalry between the two sisters. Although there was a rift when Mangeshkar disapproved of her younger sister’s first marriage, there was no evidence to suggest an ongoing feud. Yet it made good copy and even a Bollywood film, 1998’s Saaz, was based on their alleged sibling discord. “To take a couple of incidents and exaggerate them into a three-hour film is such a waste of time,” Bhosle said.
Mangeshkar, whom she always addressed as Didi (using the Hindi word for older sister), was her “favorite singer”, she insisted. “People did carry tales and try to create trouble, but blood is thicker than water. Sometimes both of us would be at a function and some industry types would ignore me and interact only with her, as if to prove their loyalty,” she told The Times of India. “Afterwards Didi and I would have a good laugh about it.”
The Times of India
As children they had been so inseparable that Lata insisted on taking Asha to school with her. When the head teacher told their mother that they could not educate two students on one fee, Lata refused to return to school without Asha and dropped out.
Over the years the two sisters often recorded together, although Bhosle’s greatest collaborator was her second husband, the composer and musical director RD Burman. She first recorded his songs in 1966, married him in 1980 and continued to work with him until his death in 1994. Many of her best-loved songs, including Piya Tu Ab To Aaja, Dum Maro Dum and Mera Kuch Samaan, were Burman compositions and she credited him with inspiring her very best work. “He uncovered my range as a singer and made me explore the inner recesses of my voice,” she said.
Away from Bollywood her passions included cricket and cooking. She once said that if she had not been a singer she would like to have been a chef and in 2002 she launched the Asha’s chain of restaurants with 14 outlets in five countries.
She was born Asha Mangeshkar in 1933 in the village of Goar in southwest India, the third child of Shevanti and Deenanath Mangeshkar, a singer and actor-manager. Her father died when she was nine and the family moved to Mumbai, where she and Lata began singing and acting to support their widowed mother.
At 16, against her family’s wishes, she ran away to marry Ganpatrao Bhosle, who was twice her age. They separated in 1960 and she is survived by their son, Anand Bhosle, who managed his mother’s career. An older son, Hemant Bhosle, a composer, died in 2015 and her daughter Varsha Bhosle, a columnist, took her own life in 2012.
She launched her own YouTube channel in 2020 and celebrated her 90th birthday in 2023 with a concert in Dubai. “I have to stand for three hours on stage and sing songs,” she said in an interview before the show. “But I’m happy I can still do it at this age. For me, music is my breath.” - The Times
