Lata Mangeshkar

Lata Mangeshkar live at Royal 
Albert Hall, London, March 1974
The Gramophone Co. of India Ltd.
made in India, 1974, EMI

I've been a fan of Lata Mangeshkar since the early 90s. You would think I have a lot of her records, but I don't. Her records are hard to come by even as she "had recorded approximately 25,000 solo, duet, and chorus-backed songs in 20 Indian languages between 1948 to 1974"(quote: Wikipedia). In fact she was featured in the Guiness book of records for having made the most recordings of anyone. Most of these songs are from over a thousand Hindi films she recorded for, yet, try to find any of these. I've tried, I even looked during a few weeks stay in Calcutta (one of the centers of India's film industry, the other center, of course, is Bombay, well known under the moniker Bollywood, where most of Lata Mageshkar's career was situated). In the twenty some years she's been on my radar, I managed to find one full length tape and a handful compilations she's on, so I was very excited to find a double album, scratchy as it is, in a thrift store in Cape Coral, just across the Coloosahatchee. Unlike all other recordings I have and heard, the ones on the Cape Coral album are not from films but are live concert recordings. They were not recorded in India but in Britain. (Lata –and her younger sister Asha Bhosle for that matter– were born in British India.) 

This week's song to share is Aaega Aane Wala, performed by Lata Mangeshkar live at the Royal Albert Hall in 1974. She first recorded the song for the film Mahal in 1949.