Press rewind with Asha Puthli

A gig this weekend marks the Mumbai return of a legendary Indian musician from the '70s who carved a niche in the West

The landscape for western independent music in India in the 1960s was so barren compared to today that it could have resembled the marshlands of Andheri West before Lokhandwala was built. It's not that there was a dearth of talent. There was instead a lack of opportunity. Venues were few and far between. Procuring quality instruments was next to impossible given the blind eye India turned to imports back then. This meant that even getting your hands on records that were defining the sounds of the West usually involved an NRI uncle who came back bearing gifts. So, the best young musicians of the time thought up innovative ways to flee the nest, hoping to find an audience in the West that would let their talent fly. And one such person was Asha Puthli, a go-getting girl with an inimitable voice that could be Indian and western, and innocent and sensual, all at one go.

Puthli with Sir Anthony Hopkins and Ismail Merchant at a party

Puthli was hardly 20 when — despite singing jazz in the swish clubs of the time on Churchgate Street — she felt that India was clipping her wings. That's why she applied for a scholarship for a ballet course in the US in 1969, and took up a job as a stewardess with British Airways with the ulterior motive of getting a passport. But even ballet was a ruse for something else. Though trained in kathak and Bharatanatyam, dance wasn't her primary calling. She was clear that she wanted to be a singer. And a series of happy circumstances led Puthli to lending vocals for the great American jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman's 1971 album, Science Fiction. This led to critical acclaim and finally, the Bombay girl was living her dream.

But she realised soon enough that the US, too, wanted to box her free spirit. "Music there was a corporate business, more about demographics and the bottom line. In the early '70s, my persona and my name were not considered marketable to mainstream America. There was a disconnect. According to the US record labels, there was 'cognitive dissonance' — the decision makers decided that the American masses would expect tabla, sitar and temple bells when they saw me. CBS even requested I change my name to Ann Peters or Ann Powers, keeping the same initials. I refused – but had I changed my name, my career may have had a different trajectory," Puthli tells us over email.
She further writes, "Meanwhile, the British market was more open to my music due to a successful TV appearance, while the idea of testing the growing Indian population in the UK and the social and geo-political situation at that time also played a large part in the route that followed. And then came the Germans, presuming I was a British artiste singing in English and comparing it to how The Beatles got their big break in Hamburg at the start of their career."

Asha Puthli performs a song for a TV show in the 1970s

So Europe, then, was the musical playground where Puthli truly got into her swing. And in 1973, she released an eponymous debut album in England, following it up three years later with The Devil is Loose, recorded in Germany. Listening to this latter album on the Internet in 2018 is a surreal experience. Disco was still not mainstream. Donna Summers hadn't yet hit the scene with her whispery vocals. But Puthli — still a young girl originally from Matunga — had predated all these musical trends with tracks like Say Yes and Space Talk, which was later sampled by stalwart rappers like P Diddy and Notorious B.I.G. (the latter botched up the credits, but that's another story).

And now, she returns to her home city for a concert this weekend. In it, she'll collaborate with Madboy/Mink, a contemporary city-based act whose guitarist, Imaad Shah, has been consistently vocal about how her influence has shaped his music. "Space Talk is on the set list," Puthli reveals, meaning the gig will offer a first-hand idea of how an Indian girl ultimately played her own part in shaping western music once she had taken wings. And tellingly, she never forgot her roots even as she bridged the gap between the West and East because for Asha Puthli, her name remained symbolic of her identity.

On October 19, 5 pm onwards
AT G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture, Shakti Mills, Mahalaxmi.
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