Artist Bio: Lata Mangeshkar
Nickname: The Nightingale of Bollywood
Date of Birth: September 29, 1929
Last Movie done: Rang de Basanti
Place of Birth: Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India
Father’s Name: Dinanath Mangeshkar
Sister’s Name: Asha Bhosle
Spouse: unmarried
Profession: Singer and actor
Lata Mangeshkar was born in a Maharashtrian family to a famous singer, Dinanath Mangeshkar. At the age of five, her father started training her in classical music. She studied with two legendary singers Amanat Khan and Aman Ali Khan Sahib. Her superb style of singing and excellent command over musical notes differentiated her from other singers in the lead.
Lata Mangeshkar’s father died in the year 1942 and being eldest in the family she had to accept petty roles in several movies. Her debut as a playback singer was in the year 1942 for a Marathi film ‘Kit Hasaal’ but to her bad luck the song got edited from the movie. But the years 1948 and 1949 proved lucky for her career and she got many big opportunities to sing in the movies like Majboor, Mahal, Dulari, Barsaat and Andaaz. All songs of these movies were super hits and her career graph took a great hike. Lata Mangeshkar emerged as a trend setter and replaced Noor Jahan who was a nasal singer of that time.
Lata Mangeshkar with her low pitched singing was the most challenging and strong singers of that time. Each time she stepped ahead, she left behind performances that were difficult to match up and compete with. Lata was ruling the charts with her mesmerizing singing style and melodious voice. She was the first choice to do justice with the compositions of C. Ramachandra and Madan Mohan, leading music directors of that decade.
Lata Mangeshkar has been an all time favorite choice of all the music directors which was quite evident if taken a look at the music records of 1980’s and 1990’s. Even after the arrival of many fresh female playback voices, she had been approached to sing for many big banners like Yash Raj Films and recorded successful hits for the movies DDLJ, Dil to Pagal Hai, Mohabbatein and Veer Zara.
Lata Mangeshkar has many a times confronted with allegations that she is trying to restrict the upcoming voices and is dominating the Bollywood playback industry. To get rid of such accusations she started taking fewer projects and concentrated on her national and international concerts. Lata Mangeshkar always preferred to sing the original tracks that have expressed her disliking for remixes.