Shamshad Begum

Shamshad Begum (Urdu: شمشاد بیگم, IAST: Śamśād Bēgam; 14 April 1919 – 23 April 2013) was an Indian singer who was one of the first playback singers in the Hindi film industry. Begum is regarded as one of the best and most popular female playback singers, and a pioneering figure in Hindi film music and was also one of the most influential playback singers during the "Golden Age" of Bollywood (1940s–1960s). Notable for her distinctive voice and range, she sang over 6,000 songs in Hindustani, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, and Punjabi languages, among which 1287 were Hindi film songs. She worked with renowned composers of the time, such as Ghulam Haider who first discovered her.