Sadhana Sargam is an Indian playback singer.

Early life and family

Sadhana Sargam is of Maharashtrian origin. She was trained in Indian classical music by her mother, Mrs. Neelatai Ghanekar at an early age, and then by Pandit Jasraj. Her mother introduced her to a composer by the name of Anil Mohile, which later resulted in her involvement with the children's choir. In 1982, she released her first single for the film "Vidhaata".

Career

Sadhana Sargam is currently ruling the south indian playback industry with a very strong foothold in Tamil and Telugu industries and also started foraying towards Kannada industry.

She has sung more than 150 songs in Tamil alone and has many top songs, her recent song is Marali Mareyaagi from Savaari, a Kannada Movie.Other relatively recent singles from her are fromDasavathaaram (Mukundha Mukundha), which contains an accompaniment by Kamal Hasan. She has also sung 'Om Zaarare' from the Rajinikant performer Kuselan, along with Daler Mehndi and K. S. Chitra. She sang several songs in Hindi and Oriya for music director Kajol-Saroj.She has also sung the Tamil version of Mannmohanaa from Jodhaa Akbar. Her other notable recent solo Tamil song is Sutri Varum Bhoomi from the Vidhyasagar composed Jeyam Kondaan.

She has also bagged three songs from the movie Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya which has music by A. R. Rahman.

Awards

She has won several awards throughout her career including the Indian national award for best female playback singer in 2002 for a Tamil song "Pattu Solli" from the movie Azhagi, composed by Ilayaraja. In the recent 55th Filmfare Awards 2007 for South Indian films, Sadhana Sargam won the awards for the best playback singer female in both Tamil and Telugu. In Tamil, she won it for "Akkam Pakkam" from Kireedam composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar. In Telugu, she won it for her song "Manasa" in the film Munna.

She is the only singer from outside of South India, either male or female, to have won an Indian national award for any of the South Indian (Tamil) language song.

National film award for best female singer

Musical Style

In her early days as a singer, her voice at high octaves was thought to be similar to that of Lata Mangeshkar while her low octave voice was that of Asha Bhosle. However, as time passed Sargam developed her own distinct style. It is believed that Sadhana Sargam was unwittingly responsible for the rift between music greats Kalyanji-Anandji and Lata Mangeshkar when the duo compared Sargam with Mangeshkar.Mangheskar thought the comparing herself with a much junior teenage singer was unacceptable.Regardless of the above said incident, both singers have mutual respect for each other.

Influence

Contribution to classical music

In 2006, Sargam was among the singers who took part in a classical concert to mark Dinanath Mangeshkar's 100th birthday celebrations and earned praise from Hirudhayanath Mangeshkar for her performances in Hindustani classicals.

Devotional music

Sargam's contribution to devotional music is well appreciated by many senior singers like Usha Mangeshkar. Sadhana Sargam is one of the prominent forces along with Pandit Jasraj and Jagjit Singh to keep this form of music alive.

Dominance in the South

Sadhana Sargam was well received in Tamil Nadu. She is very busy in the Tamil music field. Among the Bollywood singers males or females, Sargam sang the most number of songs in Tamil music field. 132 songs of Sargam was listed as of August 2008

In an interview in May 2007 while touring in the USA, the most celebrated composer of the Indian music industry, Mr. A. R. Rahman, complimented Sadhana Sargam, calling her the only Indian singer who could surpass his imaginations and expectations in her renditions of songs.

Following is the portion of A.R. Rahman's interview after the New York concert of May 2007.

"It is one of my few scores that was not well released," Rahman says. "The songs were well used in the film but they did not reach the listeners in significant numbers." The numbers were sung by Sukhvinder Singh (who also wrote couple of lyrics) and Sadhana Sargam among others.

"She is one of the few singers who has surprised me at every turn," Rahman says. "Many singers do a very good job of doing exactly what I tell them to do but she somehow goes beyond instructions. She takes a song to another level effortlessly, and she is so good at it that I am surprised every time I work with her."