Indian vocalist and occasional music-composer who was one of the best-known and most influential and respected playback singers in India. Her honorific titles include the Nightingale of India, Voice of the Millennium and Queen of Melody.
Mangeshkar’s career started in 1942 and spanned over seven decades. She recorded songs for over a thousand Hindi films and sung songs in over thirty-six regional Indian languages and foreign languages, though primarily in Marathi and Hindi. She was the elder sister of singers Asha Bhosle, Hridaynath Mangeshkar, Usha Mangeshkar and Meena Mangeshkar. She was the second vocalist to have ever been awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour.
Mangeshkar was featured in the Guinness Book of World Records from 1974 to 1991 for having made the most recordings in the world. The claim was that she had recorded approximately 25,000 solo, duet, and chorus-backed songs in 20 Indian languages between 1948 and 1974. The category was removed in 1991 and re-introduced in 2011. In 2011 Guinness officially acknowledged Mangeshkar’s sister Asha Bhosle as the most recorded artist in music history.
On 8 January 2022, Mangeshkar tested positive for COVID-19 with mild symptoms and was admitted to Breach Candy Hospital’s intensive care unit in Mumbai. She remained in the ICU with signs of “marginal improvement” in her health. The doctors treating her had taken her off the ventilator on 28 January after her health “improved marginally”; however, she was back on the ventilator on 5 February, after her health deteriorated, and was undergoing “aggressive therapy”.
Lata Mangeshkar died from multiple organ dysfunction syndrome on 6 February 2022 at 8:12 AM at the age of 92. She had undergone 28 days of constant treatment for pneumonia and COVID-19.
Link to Wikipedia biography