Indian singer (1929–2022)
Lata Mangeshkar (born September 28, 1929), popularly called Lataji, was 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 was 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 was also the recipient of the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award of India. She was 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.
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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.
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.