Usha Uthup is my new jam, as the kids might say.
Indian singer and actress Usha - or Didi as she is known to
her fans - was born in 1947 to a policeman father and a well-red mother and was
raised in Mumbai: her two elder sisters had their own vocal act, the Sami
Sisters. Although she had no formal training in music, when she was nine years
old her sisters introduced her to Ameen Sayani, then the most popular radio
announcer in India. Ameen gave Ushu a spot on the popular Ovaltine Music Hour on
Radio Ceylon, where she sang Mockingbird Hill. Other radio appearances
followed.
Usha began to pursue a professional singing career in 1969, at
the Nine Gems nightclub in Madras. ‘It used to be in the basement of the Safire
theatre complex,’ she told The Hindu newspaper in 2019. ‘There’s magic
about Madras; there’s a buzz I get every time the plane lands here’. Her
recording career around 1972, singing in more than thirteen Indian languages
and dialects, including Hindi, Punjabi, Bangla, Gujurati and Tamil, and ten foreign
languages: French, German, Italian,
Sinhalese, Swahili, Russian, Nepalese, Arabic, Creole, and of course, English. She
has appeared in around 50 Bollywood movies, both on-screen and providing the
vocals for other actresses.
According to Usha’s website, she has recorded more than a
hundred albums in seventeen Indian languages, sung in several thousand
concerts, performed in all major countries and has been on television since its
inception in India. Usha has served as a role model for generations of young
Indians and has been an unwavering ambassador for traditional Indian values.
She has always worn a sari (kanjeevaram), fresh flowers in her hair and her
beaming smile has won her many fans. She’s still appearing in movies, and
making concert appearances, today after more than a half-century in the
business.
Her 1984 album Blast Off! is just insane. For this
collection Usha wrote the music, with the off-kilter lyrics provided by Abidur
Rahman. I implore you to check it out: Blast Off! is beyond wonderful,
with a peculiar mix of shredding electric guitar, great Indian beats, the
occasional scat vocal (Usha does a great Cleo Laine), cheesy 70s keyboards, the
odd splash of reggae (on Chewing Gum Lips), a Christmas song and a plea to
Moses to give her his ‘stick’!
From Blast Off! here are my two favourite tracks: is
the magnificent Welcome, Test Tube Baby and the bonkers Lucy Was
Crucified, which deals with the taboo subject of unwanted pregnancy. The whole album is an absolute joy.
Enjoy!
Download Baby HERE
Download Lucy HERE
Love the unexpected finish with echo on "Welcome, Test Tube Baby".
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