Hemlata

Hemlata Biography

Hemlatha belongs to that rare group of singers who have a distinct voice. She is a trained classical singer and has given valuable contributions to Indian film music industry during the era of 70’s and 80’s. She has done playback singing for 38 regional Indian languages – a unique record to achieve and the main languages include Hindi, Bengali, Rajasthani, Gujarathi, Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam, Konkani, Kannada and Sanskrit. She has also sung in foreign languages like English, French, Persian, Urdu and Dutch. Till now, she has recorded more than 5000 movies in her name of different languages.

Among the Bollywood hits, composer Ravindra Jain has given some memorable songs in his lyrics. Romantic title song of Akhiyon ki jaroko se, Kaun Disha Leke Chala of Nadiyaa Ke Paar, Le to aaye ho hame sapno ke gaon me of and Tu jo mere sur of Chitchor were given by this talented music director. Tu is tara se of Aap to aise na the composed by Usha Khanna is another memorable song in Hemlatha’s voice.  She was nominated for the first time in Filmfare for the song she sung aside Chitchor, she won it too. She was consecutively nominated for next 4 years except once for the songs, Sun ke tere pukar of Fakira, Akhiyon ki jaroko se, Megha o re megha of Sunayana and Tu is tarah of Aap to aise na the, though she couldn’t win it. It can be said that late 70’s purely belong to the distinct voice of this talented singer who is famous for unique singing style. Her classical base has helped a lot in her singing career and still she is busy in this field.

She has many relatives in Bollywood. Her husband Yogesh Bali was an actor. He died in the year 1988. Jatin-Lalit, Sulakshana pandit, Geeta bali and Yogitha bali are her relatives. She has done live concerts in Hindustani music and has got opportunity to meet Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Ustad Amir Khan and Ustad Alla Rakha. Apart from Hindi movies, she has given valuable contributions to Bhojpuri, Marathi and Gujarathi. Apart from raveendra Jain, she has worked with many big names of Bollywood – Bappi lahiri, Laxmikanth Pyarelal, salil Chowdhury and Khayyam.  

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Updated: June 07, 2013