Usha Uthup on being people’s singer: My music is middle of the road

PTI, Mar 9, 2022, 5:15 PM IST

Image Credit: Twitter / @dt_next

Veteran singer Usha Uthup believes her genre of music is ”people’s music” as she has sung songs that the audience really loves.

Known for her deep and distinct voice, Uthup carved a niche for herself with songs like ”Hare Rama Hare Krishna”, ”Rambha Ho” and ”Koi Yahaan Nache Nache” that remain popular till date.

”I sang what people loved. If you love to listen to a particular song, I was that. If you like to listen to an Elvis Presley song, then I was that. If you like to listen to Kishore Kumar songs, I was that. ”So I was very middle of the road kind of music, which everybody would call either retro or recall. But I like to call it people’s music and that requires a different kind of riyaaz because music is not my business, communication is. And I was always doing riyaaz so as to better communicate with people,” Uthup said.

The 74-year-old singer was speaking at a virtual session of the Jaipur Literature Festival to discuss “The Queen of Indian Pop: The Authorised Biography of Usha Uthup”, the English translation of pop icon Usha Uthup’s biography “Ullas Ki Naav”.

Uthup said she found her true calling as a singer when as a teenager, people liked her singing and would applaud her.

”When I realized that when I sang, people liked it and clapped their hands, that was something fantastic for me. And that was truly my calling — being a people’s person and being a people’s singer.” Contrary to the book’s title, the singer said she never identified herself with the ”queen of Indian pop” title.

”I never thought of myself as the queen of pop or anything as I was somebody who was thrown out of class or not happily accepted in music class,” Uthup said she never learnt a note of music but would often listen to songs playing on the radio that would inspire to try singing those tracks.

But she soon found out that she had a limitation, the singer added.

”Some of the most difficult songs I heard were on Radio Ceylon or Madhur Gitam or Vivid Bharati… There were many songs by Pat Boone, Elvis Presley, and The Beatles that I heard on the radio, I would love to sing them.

”And then I found that I had a limitation. I could go very low but I couldn’t go very high. So I was a middle-of-the-road kind of a musician and also more (of) a black Western kind of singer. I could sing more of Stevie Wonder or Jose Feliciano but not so much of the Lata Mangeshkar genre.” Uthup said she realized that she would never be able to emulate Mangeshkar’s singing and therefore decided to sing songs in her own way.

”I started singing it the way I know. And I didn’t feel bad about it. There were often ghazals which I listened to but I wouldn’t go that road because I know that it was not my genre. I was happy to just listen to those songs and assimilate whatever I could. ”That was a limitation, a weakness or shall I say that I made it my strength because I did not venture into something that I knew was not meant for me. I discovered this very early in my life.” Uthup further said that it is her personal belief that there is a singer in every person.

”I’m just like everybody else. I have always said this in my shows as well that there is a singer in everybody. Even if you aren’t a singer, everybody feels they can sing. When you ask people to join you in singing, then they may initially say that they don’t know how to do that. But when you encourage them, they will all sing. Whether it is ‘be-taal’ or ‘besur’, that’s not the point.

”It is the power of music that just gets people together. There is a singer in everyone… It is up to you as a singer or an entertainer to get that thing out of someone,” she added. The 15th edition of JLF will be held online till March 9, and on-ground – at its new venue of Hotel Clarks Amer in Jaipur – from March 10-14.