Singer whose singing is pre-recorded for use in film
A playback singer (as they are usually known in South Asian cinema) or ghost singer (in Western cinema) is a singer whose performance is pre-recorded for use in films. Playback singers record songs for
soundtracks, and the performers
lip-sync the songs for cameras; the actual singer does not appear on the screen.
South Asia
South Asian films produced in the Indian subcontinent frequently use this technique. A majority of
Indian films as well as
Pakistani films typically include six or seven songs. After Alam Ara (1931), the first Indian
talkie film, for many years singers made dual recordings for a film, one during the shoot, and later in the recording studio, until 1952 or 1953. Popular playback singers in India enjoy the same status as popular actors and music directors[1][2][3] and receive wide public admiration. Most of the playback singers are initially trained in classical music, but they later often expand their range.[4]
Mohammed Rafi and
Ahmed Rushdi[5] are regarded as two of the most influential playback singers in South Asia.[6] The sisters
Lata Mangeshkar and
Asha Bhosle, who have mainly worked in Hindi films, are two of the best-known and most prolific playback singers in India.[7][8] In 2011, Guinness officially acknowledged Bhosle as the most recorded artist in music history.[9]
Hollywood
The practice is also employed in Hollywood musicals, where such performers are known as ghost singers, though less frequently in other genres. Notable
Hollywood performances include
Anita Ellis as the voice of
Rita Hayworth's title character in Gilda (1946). Both Anita Ellis's and Rita Hayworth's performances were so impressive that audiences did not know that Rita's voice had been dubbed. Called "the sexiest voice of 1946", Ellis's identity was not publicized. Rita Hayworth was instead credited on the soundtrack.
^Earl J. Hess and Pratibha A. Dabholkar, Singin' in the Rain: The Making of an American Masterpiece (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2009), p145.