Asha Puthli: the flight attendant who became India’s greatest vocalist
Over the years, India has produced a plethora of the world’s most talented vocalists. The South Asian nation has an incredibly long and storied musical history dating back hundreds of years. In the modern age, Indian music has been influenced everywhere, from The Beatles to Kula Shaker. Within the contemporary musical landscape of India, there are few singers who have achieved the same level of success and acclaim as Asha Puthli, who traded a stable life as a British Airways flight attendant to become a global superstar.
Born into an upper-middle-class Hindu family in Bombay, the niece of noted Indian independence advocate Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Puthli found her calling in music at a very early age. Beginning to study Indian classical music and opera during her childhood, she soon found an affinity for jazz and pop music, which she heard on the radio stations of Mumbai. But alas, Asha was a fairly ordinary girl from Bombay. The likelihood of her becoming a pop sensation was improbable, to say the least.
After graduating from a university in Mumbai, Puthli travelled to London, where she worked as a flight attendant for British Airways. Still, she never entirely gave up on her early love of pop music. After all, in London, Asha found jazz music to be much more accessible and widespread than on the obscure radio stations of Bombay. Something had to give eventually, and in the late 1960s, it did. After winning a dance scholarship while on holiday in America, Puthli jacked in her stable job at BA, moved to New York, and dedicated herself entirely to her artistic endeavours.
Countless young hopefuls have moved to New York in the hopes of achieving artistic greatness, following in the footsteps of Patti Smith and Bob Dylan. However, not many of these adolescent dreams were backed up with vocal talents comparable to Asha Puthli. Admittedly, lady luck played a part in her success, too. John H. Hammond of Colombia Records had come across the vocalist in a copy of Jazz in Bombay and quickly signed her up to CBS after hearing some demos.
The world was first exposed to the distinctive vocals of the Bombay-born prodigy on Peter Ivers’ cover of the Marvin Gaye classic ‘Ain’t That Peculiar’, released in 1972. From that point onwards, Puthli’s career went from strength to strength, enmeshing herself in the vibrant world of avant-garde jazz. After featuring as a guest on two tracks on Ornette Coleman’s Science Fiction, she rose to prominence as one of the premier jazz vocalists in operation.
As is often the case, Puthli went underappreciated in the US but found an audience among jazz fanatics in Europe. Her debut solo album, released in 1973, however, drew upon an incredibly broad range of influences, reflecting her disparate genre interests. Drawing upon the likes of funk, soul, disco and glam rock, the eponymous album is as varied and interesting as it is groundbreakingly innovative.
The record kicked off a long and widely successful career for Puthli, who is still active in music to this day, releasing ‘Je crois c’est ca l’amour’ alongside Gabriel Grillotti in 2021. There aren’t many vocalists whose talents are so wide-reaching that their discography could include avant-garde jazz composers back-to-back with Italian prog rock outfit Goblin.
The seemingly endless variety of Puthli’s discography is a testament to the unique talents of Asha Puthli, who remains the finest vocalist to ever hail from the vibrant streets of Bombay.
