While singers half her age, never mind how successful they were a few years ago, find it difficult to get prestigious auditoriums, 75-year-old Asha Bhosle can get any hall of her choice. She performed on Thursday at Carnegie Hall to an audience who gave her a deafening ovation, again and again throughout the three hour show.
Arguably one of the five most respected of American venues, the much in demand hall saw the veteran singer drive the audiences into a frenzy, with some help from Amit Kumar who belted out some of his father Kishore Kumar's most popular songs including Roop tera mastana from Aradhana. He also joined Asha in several duets from films such as Anamika. Asha brought down the house with her uninhibited but graceful dancing.
Asha has danced on stage with her co-singers for quite some time. She says Kishore Kumar taught her to dance with him, ensuring that the show becomes livelier. She had danced, while performing hit numbers, with a raft of singers ranging from Udit Narayan (who is rather awkward while dancing) to Sonu Nigam (very relaxed). But Asha has never been so relaxed and spontaneous dancing with Amit.
Performing before a live audience gives her a real high, Asha confesses, because she knows there are no re-takes. She has to be on her toes, all the time.
But there is also another reason. "Most of my life I have sung with a live orchestra around me," she says. "There would be more than a dozen violins, and there would be many musical instruments. At times there would be so many musicians in the orchestra, I could not count them in a few minutes."
But in the past decade and half, there has been a radical departure in the way music is recorded. Composers such as A.R. Rahman have the voice recorded first and then mix the music. "It is a very lonely feeling," she says, though she admires Rahman a lot. "So when I get an opportunity to sing with the musicians, even if they are just about half a dozen, I jump at the opportunity."
Text: Arthur J Pais | Photograph: Paresh Gandhi
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