Revered Bollywood playback singer Asha Bhosle performs here tomorrow on a tour marking her 75th year. Here are the essential Bhosle facts:

Bollywood: An informal term popularly applied to the Hindi-language film industry of Mumbai, India.

Playback Singer: Pre-records a song, to which an actor lip-syncs for the cameras. Popular Indian playback singers enjoy the same status as film stars and the soundtrack often determines a film's success.

Born: Sept. 8, 1933

First Marriage: Eloped at 16, later divorced. "I believed that one could survive on love and fresh air, but of course that is only possible in films." –The Hindu News, Sept.9, 2007

Second Marriage: To one of Bollywood's great composers, Rahul Dev Burman, also known as R. D. Burman and Pancham, died in 1994.

Big break: Music director O.P. Nayyar invites her to sing in his film CID, 1956.

Songs performed (some estimates): 20,000

Songs performed (her estimate): 12,000

Languages sung: 14

Claim to fame: Best known as a playback singer but considered one of South Asia's most versatile artists with a broad repertoire. "Her ability to change the colour of her voice remains positively uncanny," writes Ken Hunt in The Rough Guide to World Music. "She is convincing as the ingénue, the matronly middle-aged woman or the old lady looking back wistfully."

Standout albums:

Duets Forever: Asha Bhosle and Mohammed Rafi features two of Indian film music's top artists.

Legacy features Bhosle singing classical and light classical numbers with sarod player Ali Akbar Khan.

The Rough Guide to Bollywood Legends: Asha Bhosle: Compiled with Bhosle's assistance and including her own track commentaries.

Biggest Stretch: In one of her first East-West collaborations, Bhosle recorded "Bow Down Mister" in 1989 with Boy George.



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Just the facts
WHO: Asha Bhosle: 75 Years of Asha

WHEN: Tomorrow, 8p.m.

WHERE: Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St. at King St. W.

TICKETS: $39.50 to $124.50 at 416-872-4255 or roythomson.com

Toronto Star - john Goddard , staff reporter