Asha Bhosle could go on singing
Bollywood to Boy George, Indian legend is everywhere.
Asha Bhosle is to Indian music what Ennio Morricone is to the Italians - a titan of that country's cinematic film soundtrack landscape as well as its pop charts, whose music transcends all literal and figurative borders.
Whether it's movies familiar to fans of Bollywood, duets with the likes of Kronos Quartet, Michael Stipe and Boy George, or her sinewy sound as sampled by Black Eyes Peas and Sarah Brightman, there's more Bhosle going around than you can imagine.
A lot more.
"I never counted how many songs I was recording. It just went on and on," says Bhosle, who began her career as an Indian cinema "playback" singer in 1943. "When the book Swarasha was released, which listed almost all my recorded songs until 1990, I was surprised to know that I had become the most-recorded singer in the world, with 13,000-odd songs to my credit."
When the singer, who turns 75 in September and whose appearance Sunday night at the Kimmel Center is billed as "75 Years of Asha," says she's not one to live in the past, you believe her. Mention 1943's "Chala Chala Nav Bala" for Majha Bal or joke about whether she ever forgot for what film she was singing, she says, "When I was recording constantly every day, there was no time to think of the next song. I used to concentrate on what I had in hand first. When that got over, I used to move to the next recording studio and listen and perform the next song." The one constant since her start at age 10 is that she gets excited by a good tune with meaningful lyrics. "That will never go away. If that goes, then my music is finished."
The artist, who made cinematic magic with countless composers and music directors (including Rahul Dev Burman, to whom she was married), became a legend because of her Bollywood contributions.
But her private albums and collaboration with Westerners, too, offer Bhosle a graceful haven. "For them, the world is a stage," she says.
As for her future, Bhosle says softly "I think Robert Frost put it aptly: 'The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep and miles to go before I sleep.' "