Lata Mangeshkar, Bollywood Singer Dubbed ‘Queen of Melody,’ Dies at 92

variety.com:

Shalini Dore Features News EditorIndian singer and Bollywood icon Lata Mangeshkar died Feb. 6 in Mumbai, India. She was 92 and was suffering from multiple post-COVID complications.She was admitted to Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital in January with pneumonia.

Indian media have reported that she also had heart problems.Mangeshkar, dubbed “the queen of melody” by Indian media, sang mostly film songs, though many were also religious tunes called bhajans.

She was also responsible for singers earning royalties rather than just a one-time payment thanks to a lone battle she waged in the 1960s that finally bore fruit in 2018.In a tribute to her, the late Dilip Kumar once said, “The way the fragrance of a flower has no color, a flowing spring or cool breeze belongs to no country, the smile of an innocent child has no religion, similarly Lata Mangeshkar’s voice is a miracle of nature’s creativity.” When her father, musician and theater actor Deenanath, died at an early age, Mangeshkar, the oldest of four siblings, started to sing under the aegis of family friend Vinayak.Even though detractors said her voice was too reedy, Mangeshkar broke through first in Marathi films and later in Hindi cinema, which was headquartered in what was then called Bombay.

Trained in Hindustani classical music, she also studied the Urdu language as many lyricists in the 1940s wrote in that language.