Lata Mangeshkar (born September 28, 1929), popularly called Lataji, is an Indian singer and an occasional music-composer. In her singing career of over seven decades she has been one of the best-known and most admired playback singers in India. She is also known by the epithet "Melody queen". Her songs are recorded in over thirty-six regional Indian languages and foreign languages with maximum recordings in more than 1,000 Hindi films and also songs in her mother tongue Marathi. She has won innumerable awards for film songs and is also the recipient of the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award of India. She is also recipient of the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award. She is the world's most prolific recording artist. She was featured in the Guinness Book of World Records from 1974 to 1991 for recording over 25,000 solo, duet, and chorus-backed songs in 20 Indian languages between 1948 and 1974.
Quotes
- It was not really the external influences that made me a singer. Music was within me. I was full of it
- Quotations by 60 Greatest Indians. Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology.
- People should be blessed in life with friends who are both "Mirrors & Shadows"! Mirrors don't lie & shadows never leave.
- Quotes. The Sunday Indian. Retrieved on 29 November 2013.
- Mohd Rafi saab and I fought over royalty rights. At a meeting attended by prominent singers and musicians, he stood up and said, Main aaj se Lata ke saath nahin gaoonga. I retorted, Rafi saab, 'ek minute. Aap nahin gaayenge mere saath yeh galat baat hai. Main aapke saath nahin gaoongee'. I stormed out and called all my composers there and then and informed them to rope in another singer if it was a duet with Rafi saab.
- . Hindustan Times. =7 November 2012. Retrieved on 29 November 2013.
- When I speak, my Urdu isn’t very good but when I sing I make sure there are no flaws in my diction.
- I first listen to someone who speaks the language and who reads the lyrics to me. I pay great attention to pronunciation. Once I hear the words spoken, I write the song lines phonetically in Hindi and then sing. By the grace of god, my songs in other languages – including Bengali – have been appreciated. People say they are good and the words have been correctly pronounced.
- Above two quotes about her singing in Urdu and other languages in Lata Mangeshkar has to thank Dilip Kumar for her Urdu skills!. India Today. Retrieved on 29 Npvember 2013.
About Lata Mangeshkar
- India's greatest playback singer Lata Mangeshkar who sang for him [Naushad] in the film.
- Comment made after she sang for the film Baiju Bawra with Naushad as music director The Literary Works of Ranganathan Magadi. Ranganathan Magadi. pp. 657–. ISBN 978-1-4116-7004-4.
- Lata Mangeshkar is known to have been a sympathiser of the Hindutva ideology. In fact, she was a sympathiser of the pro-Hindu Mahasabha, which is a hardcore rightist organisation. Despite that she was given various awards by governments of varying political hues only and only for her mind-boggling contribution to film music.
- "Strip Lata Mangeshkar of Padma, Bharat Ratna awards, says Congress leader Janardhan Chandurkar". DNA India. Retrieved on 29 November 2013.
- I went to the temple, not to pay homage to Lord Mangesh, but on a sort of pilgrimage to see the place where you were born.
- Kushwant Singh in Khushwant Singh (1981). Khushwant Singh's editor's page. IBH Pub. Co..