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Prolific singer Usha Uthup, whose iconic voice and trademark style is remembered over decades, turned a year older today. From ‘Ab Ke Sawan Aise Barse’ to ‘Ramba Ho’ and from ‘Hari Om Hari’ to ‘Darling’ – Usha Uthup has had an outstanding musical journey and she refuses to stop. At 73, she is actively indulging in virtual concerts, dabbling on social media and is excited to celebrate her birthday. In an exclusive tête-à-tête with ETimes, Usha Uthup opened up about her birthday celebration, the trend of remixes in Bollywood and her ongoing projects. Excerpts from the conversation:
How do you plan to celebrate your birthday this year?
I’m a different kind of person. I get very excited with my birthday. I keep telling people before hand only, including my husband and the children, to remember my birthday, because I love getting good wishes from everybody. And of course, if I really need something that I’m always saying, please get me a pair of socks, this color or things like that. Right from my childhood I’ve always been so excited about my birthdays. So lockdown or no lockdown, I’m still excited, I love birthdays, not just mine, but other people’s as well. I feel excited about it from a week before itself. Of course this is the festive season, so in any case, everybody’s in a happy mood and with the lockdown being there, of course there’s no celebration in any case. I suppose I’m looking forward to all the WhatsApp messages and all the gifts, which would be sent to the house, but it’s not so much the gifts that I get excited by as much as the messages, the people who really want to wish me. It’s so beautiful. It’s always a celebration at home, unless my children plan it. I’ve been totally at home since March 7, when I did my last show in Jodhpur, after that I have been totally home. So I’m happy celebrating it here with my son and everybody else will wish me.
One song that has got you grooving in recent time?
There are so many , but I think my all time favorite is ‘Aaj Se Teri’ –Arijit’s song. Arijit Singh is my favourite singer. There are so many others as well. Like I still love Shankar Mahadevan, Hariharan, Sunidhi Chauhan and Shreya Ghoshal, there are lots and lots of fantastic singers. But I would say at the moment, what I’m really hooked onto is ‘Jerusalema’.
Your opinion on the trend of remixes
It is not a current trend, it has been going on for so long. In the olden days, it was not called a remix. It was just called the version. When a Bhajan is sung by so many people, you don’t call it a remix. It’s another version, another interpretation of the same song. Similarly, I look at all the songs as another interpretation of the same song and all those beautiful tunes would be lost today if it weren’t for the fact that we had people who were doing new versions of it. I’m not saying that all remixes are all good, but it’s fantastic to bring back the old tunes.
Have you ever rejected a song because of its lyrics?
No, I have never done that because I think work is work, a song is a song and I’ve always felt that the song is bigger than the singer. I still maintain that.
What are you presently working on?
I’m doing a lot of new projects. I started off singing as a nightclub singer, so I knew all the Western songs and I would do ‘Margarita’ and so many songs. And then, because I was so involved with Hindi music as well and filmy music as well, I used to listen to a lot of it on the radio and then realized that so many of them are inspired by original English songs. So that’s what I’m doing now. For example I am singing ‘Besame Mucho’ and then I am also doing ‘Yeh Sama’. Songs that have been inspired and the original ones, I do both of them.
Source From : Times Of India
