Asha Bhonsle

Asha Bhosle (born September 8, 1933) is an Indian singer. She is best known as a Bollywood playback singer, although she has a much wider repertoire. Her career started in 1943 and has spanned over six decades. She has done playback singing for over 950 Bollywood movies and sold many records. She is the sister of the equally accomplished Lata Mangeshkar.

Asha Bhosle is considered as one of the most versatile of South Asian singers — her range of songs includes film music, pop, ghazals, bhajans, traditional Indian Classical music, folk songs, qawwalis, and Rabindra Sangeet. She has sung in over 14 languages including Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, English, Russian, Czech, Nepali, Malay and Malayalam.

Asha Bhosle is believed to have sung over 12,000 songs.

O. P. Nayyar gave Asha Bhosle a big break in C.I.D. (1956). She first achieved success in B. R. Chopra's Naya Daur (1957), composed by O. P. Nayyar. O.P Nayyar and Asha Bhosle's collaboration produced many hits. Later, she also received patronage of composers such as Sachin Dev Burman and Ravi. O. P. Nayyar and Asha Bhosle had a professional and personal parting of the ways in the 1970s. In 1966, Asha's performance in the duets from music director R D Burman's first successful movie, Teesri Manzil won popular acclaim. Their collaboration produced several hits in the 1970s and resulted in a marriage. In 1960s and 1970s, she became the voice of Bollywood's most famous dancer, Helen. It is said that Helen would attend her recording sessions so that she could understand the song better and plan dance steps accordingly. Some of the most popular Asha Bhosle-Helen numbers are Piya tu ab to aaja ( Caravan), O Haseena Zulfon Wali (Teesri Manzil), and Yeh Mera Dil ( Don). Her film activities slowed in the 1990s. Her performance in the 1994 hit Rangeela was particularly notable. As late as 2005, 62-year-old Asha Bhosle's numbers for the Tamil film Chandramukhi and Lucky Lips for Salman Khan-starrer Lucky were chartbusters. Asha has been active on the international scene also and she has collaborated with many reputed artists over the years belting out hit numbers. In the mid-1980s, Asha sang with ‘Boy George’ (Bow down mister) and Stephen Lauscombe. In 1997, she sang a love song with the boy band ‘Code Red’, at the age of 64. She also recorded the song The Way you Dream (One Giant Leap) with Michael Stipe that was used in the English movie, Bulletproof Monk.

In 1997, the British band Cornershop paid tribute to Asha with their song Brimful of Asha, an international hit which was later remixed by Fatboy Slim. In 2001, the CD single of Nelly Furtado's "I'm Like A Bird" included a "Nellie vs. Asha Remix" created by Digital Cutup Lounge.

In 2003, British opera pop singer Sarah Brightman sampled her song "Dil Cheez Kya Hai" on her album Harem. It was used as the intro for her song "You Take My Breath Away".

In 2005, American string quartet Kronos Quartet re recorded the R D Burman compositions like Chura liya, Piya tu, Mera Kuchh Saaman among others and got Asha to sing them. Despite her age (she had crossed 70), she recorded three to four songs in a day, leaving the quartet members stupefied. On August 23, 2005, You've stolen my heart - Songs From R D Burman's Bollywood was released in US. The album was nominated for Grammy Awards 2006 in the category of "Best Contemporary World Music Album".

Also in 2005, the Black Eyed Peas sampled her song "Yeh Mera Dil" in their hit single "Don't Phunk With My Heart". In late 2006, Asha collaborated with Australian test cricket star, Brett Lee. The single, "you're the one for me" debuted at number 4 on the charts and reached a peak position of number 2.

In 2006 Asha Bhosle recorded one song for the soundtrack of Pakistani movie Mein Ek Din Laut Kay Aaaonga. She sang the song Dil Key Taar Bajey with famous Pakistani pop singer Jawad Ahmed. The song was aired as the part of the film's promortional campaign and became very popular, featuring on top music charts.