Lata Mangeshkar - The Queen : Part 1 - The Milieu of the 40s
The link to all parts of this series is given here: Series Links This series only looks at Lata's Music. We will not be going too much in Lata's biography. (There are enough resources available for that.) To understand what Lata was up against when she entered the industry, it is necessary to have some idea of the Music of those times. Lata's first breakthrough song with Ghulam Haider was in 1948. So let us look first at the female singers of those days and try to get a sense of how they sounded during those times. The most famous names of those times were Noorjahan, Kushid Bano, Shamshad Begum, Zohrabai Ambalewali, Amirbai Karnataki, and Rajkumar. Noorjahan was a reigning queen. Noorjahan and Kurshid Bano went to Pakistan after the partition. The others remained in India. All the above voices were seen as 'strong' voices. Voices with a high volume, some of them had a lot of bass in their voice. The singing was open-throated and, by modern standards, a bit loud. V...