 Anuradha Paudwal
Anuradha Paudwal is a popular playback singer in Bollywood in India. She was born on 27th October. She has been one of the leading playback singers since Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhonsle.She was the first singer to challenge the monopoly of the Mangeshkar singers, with a spate of successes in the hindi Playback industry, achieving the number one position. She studied at Xavier's College in Mumbai (Bombay).
She was married to Arun Paudwal, who worked with music director S. D. Burman as his assistant. Anuradha's career started in 1973 with the movie, Abhimaan, (starring Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan) She sang a melodious "shloka" in that movie. In the same year she 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 the movie, Kalicharan, (which starred Shatrugan Sinha and Reena Roy).
Her first solo was in the movie, Aap Beeti, (starring Hema Malini and Shashi Kapoor). Laxmikant-Pyarelal was the music-composing duo for that movie. She also occasionally sang songs which were composed by Rajesh Roshan (Des Pardes), Jaidev (Dooriyan, Laila Majnu), Kalyanji-Anandji (Kalaakar, Vidhataa), and Usha Khanna (Souten, Sajan Bina Suhagan).
Anuradha sang in a number of Marathi movies: some memorable numbers such as "Disate Majalaa" (in the movie, Ashtavinayak), "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.
Before gaining a foothold in the Hindi film industry, she achieved popularity in Marathi cinema with a spate of melodious renditions. Popular movies include "Ashtavinayak", "Assa Navra Nako Ga Bai", "Mumbaicha Fauzdar", "Navri mile Navryala", "Gammat Jammat", "Devta", "Ashi Hi Banwabanwi" to list a few. She has also sang with Asha Bhosle in the movie 'Ha Khel Sawlyancha"
She started singing for Laxmikant Pyarelal. She gained recognition when she rendered some exceptional numbers for the movie, Hero. (Laxmikant-Pyarelal was the music-composing duo for Hero.) It is rumored that the song was supposedly to be sung by Laxmikant Pyarelal's bete noire Lata Mangeshkar but she could not make it.
The director liked Anuradha's version which was retained and went on to became huge hit. There was another catchy number which catapulted Anuradha to a very good commandable position and that was "Ding Dong O Baby sing a song". Her collabration with Laxmikant Pyarelal saw her capture new heights with hits after hits in "Meri Jung"(O mere Kwabon ke), "Batwara"(Taare waste dola),"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 mane". Following this she collaborated with movie producer, Gulshan Kumar, and her success streak began with the movies, Lal Dupatta Malmal Ka, Tezaab, Aashiqui, and Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin.
The 90's saw her scale new heights and open vistas for lot of bollywood singers. She along with Gulshan KUmar were instrumental in getting lot of playback singer to the fore. Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan, Abhijeet, Sonu NIgam all started doing cover versions for T-series and slowly entered the playback arena.
New Music directors also were introduced including her husband Arun Paudwal. Nadeem Shravan, Anu Malik, Nikhil Vinay and Amar Utpal all collaborated and got melody back to playback in Bollywood. Anuradha also sang beautiful duets with her cosingers from south notably being S.P.Balasubramium and Yesudas.
Anuradha had her share of controversies. She single handly charged the music industry of favouring the Mangeshkar family and their monopoly being the main cause of inability of new singers coming up in the playback industry. This move kind of backfired as many music directors did not like it.
The death of her husband trigerred rumors of her relationship with Gulshan Kumar which she denied. While she declined offers in acting, T-Series used her attractive and pleasing looks to good effect in numerous Bhajan and promotional videos. She was considered as the first playback singer whose face featured on music covers more than film's actors.The another step that backfired was that Anuradha dubbed songs of Alka Yagnik in "Dil".She further went to dub Lata Mangeshkars song in "Radha Ka Sangam" citing that her voice suited the heroine better.
At her peak, Anuradha announced that henceforth she would sing exclusively for the music company, "T-series", and concentrated on devotional songs and "cover-version" albums, which have now become her forte. She sang for T-series for some time and then went into sabbatical. After about five years, she has restarted providing playback singing for movies.
The comeback was not so much well received and yet she sang some awesome ditties with her old music directors whom she once pushed forward. Anu Malik and Jatin Lalit used her voice in most of their movies. Anu Malik made her sing some beautiful tracks in "Mela","Mr & Mrs Khiladi" and "HUm Apke Dil mein rehte Hain". The icing on the cake was the beautiful number from "Paap"- "Intezaar". Similalry Jatin-Lalit made her sing some good numbers in " Dhai Akshar Prem Ke" "Khoobsoorat" "Dil Kya Kare". Anuradha still sings Bhajans and she is best at it.
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