P Susheela bags Swaralaya award

Playback singer P. Susheela has been selected for this year’s Swaralaya-KPAC Sulochana Award. The award instituted in memory of K P A C Sulochana, the great theater playback artist, which carry a purse of Rs 50,000 is given to female playback artists. The award is given to P Susheela for the great contribution that the veteran artist had made to the growth of South Indian film music. Recognized as one of the greatest stars the world of south Indian cinema has ever known, Pulapaka Susheela, born in 1935 at Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh has recorded several songs in most of the Indian languages including Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada. In her career spanning about four decades, she received National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer five times in 1969, 1972, 1978, 1983 and 1984. In 2001, Andhra Pradesh Government honored her with the Raghupathi Venkaiah Award for lifetime achievement to Telugu Cinema. In 2005, she achieved Special Jury Swaralaya Yesudas Award for outstanding performance in music. She is also the latest recipient of Padmabhushan awards.