Anuradha Paudwal

Anuradha Paudwal
Background information
Birth name	Alka nadakarni
Born	Karwar, Uttara kannada, Karnataka
Genres	playback singing, bhajans
Occupation(s)	Singer
Instruments	Vocalist
Years active	1973–2012

Anuradha Paudwal (मराठी: अनुराधा पौडवाल) is an Indian playback singer in Bollywood.

She is noted in Hindi cinema with a career spanning three decades.She is a five-time winner from 15 nominations of the Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer,a recipient of the National Film Award. She has sung in several languages including Hindi, Kannada, Marwari, Pahari, Marathi, Sanskrit, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Oriya, Assamese, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, Nepali and Maithili.

Biography

Her singing career started in 1973 with the movie, Abhimaan, (starring Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan) in which she sang a Shloka (a Sanskrit verse). In the same year she also made her Marathi film debut with "Yashoda" (music by Datta Davjekar). In 1974, she brought out a record of Non-film Marathi songs or "bhav geeten" which became very popular.

In 1976, she got her break as a playback singer in Hindi films with Kalicharan (starring Shatrughan Sinha and Reena Roy). Her first solo was in the movie, Aap Beati, (starring Hema Malini and Shashi Kapoor). Laxmikant-Pyarelal were the music-composer duo for that movie. She also occasionally sang songs for composers Rajesh Roshan (Udhar Ka Sindoor), Jaidev (Dooriyan, Laila Majnu), Kalyanji Anandji (Kalaakar, Vidhaata), and Usha Khanna (Souten, Saajan Bina Suhagan).

Anuradha apparently never received any formal training in classical music, stating in an interview, "I have not received any formal training in classical music. I have tried many times, but it has never worked out. I learnt a little here and a little there, but ultimately, I just practiced for many hours listening to Lataji".^[1]

Anuradha gained recognition with her popular numbers for the movie, Hero, for composers Laxmikant-Pyarelal. Her collaboration with Laxmikant-Pyarelal produced more success with songs for Meri Jung ("O Mere Kwabon Ke"), Batwara ("Thaare Vaaste Re Dola-Tu Maaro Kaun Lage"), Nagina and many more.Ram Lakhan saw Laxmikant-Pyarelal giving three major hit songs to Anuradha. Their association ended with Tezaab where she sang two good numbers for them – "Kehdo Ki Tum" and "Hum Tumko Dilbar Kyon Maane".

Following this she collaborated with movie producer, Gulshan Kumar, and began a success streak with the movies, Lal Dupatta Malmal Ka, Tezaab, Aashiqui and Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin. She along with Gulshan Kumar were instrumental in getting many unknown playback singers to the fore, including Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan, Abhijeet, Sonu Nigam. New Music directors, including her husband Arun Paudwal, were introduced to the music world. Nadeem-Shravan, Anu Malik, Anand-Milind, Nikhil Vinay and Amar Utpal all collaborated with T-Series (Gulshan Kumar's music label) and started a new era of melody in Bollywood. Most of her duets have been with Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan, Mohammed Aziz. She sang some songs with Kishore Kumar, Mohammed Rafi and also with her female co-singers; Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Alka Yagnik, and Sadhana Sargam. Her other notable songs were also for the famous duo Shiv-Hari, for the movie "Sahebaan". She has also sung for R.D. Burman in her initial days and actually convinced him to make songs for Gulshan Kumar's label in his last days and the song "Aja Meri Jaan" set to one of the background score of R.D.Burman from Saagar is still popular. She also sang beautiful duets with her co-singers from south, notably Dr. K. J. Yesudas and S. P. Balasubrahmanyam.

Work with

Music Directors

She has worked with many music directors like S. D. Burman, Jaidev, Shiv-Hari, Ravindra Jain, Laxmikant–Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji, Rahul Dev Burman, Rajesh Roshan, Bappi Lahiri, Anand-Milind, Nadeem-Shravan, Jatin Lalit, Dilip Sen-Sameer Sen, A. R. Rahman, Anu Malik, Jagjit Singh, Anup Jalota, Uttam Singh, Raam Laxman, Hamsalekha, Arun Paudwal, Usha Khanna, Viju Shah, Anand Raj Anand, Vishal Bhardwaj, Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy, Himesh Reshammiya, M. M. Keeravani, Aadesh Shrivastava, Sajid-Wajid, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Nikhil Vinay, Daboo Malik, Sukhwinder Singh, Adnan Sami, Sanjeev-Darshan and Ajay-Atul.

Lyricist

Including Majrooh Sultanpuri, Anand Bakshi, Gulzar, Indeevar, Javed Akhtar, Sameer, Dev Kohli, Sayeed Quadri, etc.

Controversies

Anuradha believed to have dubbed the songs of Alka Yagnik in the film Dil. This also caused rifts between Anand-Milind and Alka Yagnik, thereby causing them to not collaborate for 2 years. Later in 1998, Anuradha Paudwal dubbed the songs of Alka Yagnik once again for the film Itihaas, this time under the music direction of Dilip Sen-Sameer Sen. Alka Yagnik protested, to which the music company, T-Series was forced to include both versions of the same song, one in the voice of Alka Yagnik and the other in the voice of Anuradha Paudwal. She went to dub Lata Mangeshkar's song in Radha Ka Sangam citing that her voice suited the heroine better. Anu Malik, a smaller name then, who had composed the soundtrack, protested against this move.

At her peak, Anuradha announced that henceforth she would sing exclusively for "T-Series", and concentrated on devotional songs and "cover-version" albums. T-Series used her fame to good effect in numerous Bhajan and promotional videos. She was the first playback singer whose face featured on music covers more than the film's actors. She sang for T-series for some time and then went into a sabbatical. After about five years, she restarted her playback career. She sang a few hit songs for her old music directors but the reception for her comeback was mild.

Marathi

Anuradha sang in a number of Marathi movies including the memorable "Disate Majalaa", "Raja Lalakaari", and "Kaalyaa Maatita Maatitaa". Most of these movies had music by the duo of Anil-Arun, Arun being her husband, who collaborated with Anil Mohile to form a pair.

Kannada

Anuradha has sung a number of super hit Kannada film songs and few devotional songs. She once said in an interview that she wants songs to sing in Kannada language.^[2] Anuradha has given her live performance in Mysore Dasara, a prestigious stage for Indian singing stars.^[3] She has given many super hit songs like "Kannada nadina", "Navamasa ninnanu", "yarittaree chukki", "sai sai preethse" and recent hits like "El ellinda" a super hit song from the 2003 Kannada movie Kariya.^[4]

^[5]

Personal life

She was married to the late Arun Paudwal who worked with music director S. D. Burman as his assistant. She also has a daughter named Kavita Paudwal, who is a singer, and a son, Aditya Paudwal.

Bollywood songs

She has sung a total of 1,510 songs in Hindi and 19 songs in Oriya.

Honour

• 2010: Lata Mangeshkar Award
• 2011: Mother Teresa Award for Lifetime Achievement^[6]
• 2015: Suvarnaratna Awards-2015

2010: Lata Mangeshkar Award 2011: Mother Teresa Award for Lifetime Achievement 2004 mahakaal award for mp govt. the citizen award, which she received at the hand of late shri rajiv gandhi in 1989 national award of 1990 by the then president shri venkat raman, two maharashtra state govt.award . tree sur singaar award she had got the 28th maharashtra state maarathi film award in 1990. the prestigious mahila shiromani award in 1993 at the hands of the first lady smt. vimal sharma .*the India international gold award & the gold medal for the year 1994. the NRI association has honoured her with the natraaj awards. the sumu award for devotional music. samrat vikrmaditya award for mp govt. 2012 mohd. rafi award for maharastra govt. 2013 charges for the function is RS 1,00,000

Awards and nominations

1987 Tunda Baida Anuradha Paudwal Badhu Nirupama Akshaya Mohanty

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Anuradha Paudwal.

• Anuradha Paudwal at the Internet Movie Database
• List of Hindi movies with songs by Anuradha Paudwal