Lata mangeshkar and her Punjabi films songs

 

Lata mangeshkar and her Punjabi films songs

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Lata mangeshkar was born in lndore and her native language was Marathi. But she sang songs in many languages including Punjabi. She had started her career in the pre partition Indian cinema when Punjabi films had quite a standing and it continued, even in India, for at least a decade after the partition of india as well as of Punjabi.
chaman was the first Punjabi film after the partition and it was released in rattan cinema of lahore on August 6,1948. Lata sang three songs for the film whose music was composed by Vinod. who hailed from Lahore. The film was directed by R .K shorey who later migrated to Bombay from Lahore. Lata sang three songs for the film, galyan wich phirde dhola nikke nikke baal wey, rahay rahay jandia  and asaan bekadraan naal. All three songs were sung by pushpa hans also and his songs featured in the film for unknown reasons.
The lyrics were written by Aziz Kashmiri, a journalist turned lyricst who also started his journalistic as well as film career from Lahore.
US based journalist and author harjap singh aujla, in one of his articles in the south Asian post, writes that the climax of the film was the two songs sung by that had used the voice of lata.
In the1949, the film lachhi was released and it became a hit. Lata sang a song for the film naalay lammi tey naalay kaali and a duet, kali kanghi naal, with Mohammad rafi. Along with the lata and rafi, shamshad begum, yet another artist from Lahore, was the playback singer for the songs composed by hansraj behl. All three singers and the composer featured in many other Punjabi movies in tge days to come until the decline of the Punjabi cinema in India.
Iqbal qaiser, who is working on an encyclopedia of Punjabi films, tells dawn that lata had sang total 80 Punjab songs and she was a playback singer in 20 films.he says that the first film that lata sang for was lachhi and not chaman. He says that the film production had started before the partition and 75 of its production had been completed when the partition happened in 1947 and the rest of it was completed in India. He says hansraj behl was the first music director who used lata's voice in the film and he was known as behl Lyallpuri. According to qaiser lata's last Punjabi song was in the film mehndi shagnaa di that was released in 1992 in it she had sung a song, mathe utte tikka la key, written by babu singh maan.
Madari was released in 1950 lata sang two songs puch mera haal kaddy and rassi utte tangya dopata mera dolda. The music was composed by the exponent of the Punjab gharana of tabla, ustaad allah rakha who was called A.R Qureshi when he started composing music for films. Ustad Allah rakha was one of the disciples of table and pakhawaj master mian Qadir bakhsh. It is said that lata was referred to Allah rakha by music composer master ghulam Haider who lata considered among his mentors. The lyricst was written by aziz Kashmiri.
Iqbal qaiser says that lata had sung shabab kirtan and guru granth sahab as well as a portion of heer waris shah and she performed it live at royal Albert hall in London in 1974. The album , titled shabad, on LP record was released in 1979.
Lata died of covid related complications at a Mumbai hospital.