Kavita Krishnamurty

 Kavita Krishnamurthy (born Sharada Krishnamurthy on 25 January 1958) is an Indian film playback singer. Trained in classical music, she has sung a wide range of classical-based songs. In her career, she has worked with a variety of music composers, including R. D. Burman and A. R. Rahman. She is also the recipient of four Filmfare Best Female Playback Singer Awards, including 3 consecutive awards in the period 1994–1996, and the Padmashri which she received in 2006. In March 2013, she launched her own app which is available for free download in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.

Laxmikant gave her an option to work as a dubbing artiste or a career in playback singing later. Kavita chose the former and impressed Laxmikant with her extremely strong grasp of Hindustani classical music. Initially, she used to record songs and cut demos of songs intended for singers like Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle. In her struggling phase, she received the patronage of music composers Laxmikant—Pyarelal, who backed her so strongly that she was labelled as a singer exclusively working with them which gave many music directors an excuse to avoid working with her.

In 1980, she first sang the song, "Kaahe Ko Byaahi" in the film Maang Bharo Sajana, which featured her singing in her own voice. Unfortunately, the song was dropped from the final cut of the film. In 1985, her career took off with her first major hit, "Tumse Milkar Na Jaane Kyon" from the Hindi film Pyaar Jhukta Nahin. Post the success of the song, it opened up various opportunities beyond the Laxmikant-Pyarelal camp. However, "Hawa Hawaii" and "Karte Hain Hum Pyaar Mr. India Se", two popular songs from the equally popular movieMr. India (1987), proved to be a turning point in her career. (The songs were composed by music composers Laxmikant-Pyarelal, the latter being a duet with Kishore Kumar and lip-synced on screen by actress Sridevi). Her collaboration with Laxmikant-Pyarelal produced several hits.

The 1990s thrust Kavita to being known as one of the leading female playback singers. Her performance as a singer in the film 1942: A Love Story, composed by R.D. Burman won her a lot of popular acclaim. With a string of hits from 1942: A Love Story, Yaraana, Agni Sakshi, Bhairavi, and Khamoshi, Kavita established herself as a leading female singer in the mid-1990s. She went on to work with several music directors of Hindi films of the 1990s, such as Bappi Lahiri, Anand-Milind, A. R. Rahman, Ismail Darbar, Nadeem-Shravan,Jatin Lalit, Viju Shah and Anu Malik. During her stint as a playback singer, she sang duets with the leading male singers of her times, from Kishore Kumar and Suresh Wadkar toMohammed Aziz, Amit Kumar, Manhar Udhas, Kumar Sanu, Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Udit Narayan and Sonu Nigam. Her female duets mostly have been with Alka Yagnik,Anuradha Paudwal and Sadhana Sargam.