Sadhana Sargam is currently ruling the south indian playback industry with a very strong foothold in Tamil and Telugu industries and also started foraying towards Malayalam and Kannada industry.
She has sung more than 150 songs in Tamil alone and has many top songs, her recent song is Marali Mareyaagi from Savaari, a Kannada Movie. Other recent singles from her are from Dasavathaaram (Mukundha Mukundha), which contains an accompaniment by Kamal Hasan. She has also sung 'Om Zaarare' from the Rajinikant performer Kuselan, along with Daler Mehndi and K. S. Chitra. She sang several songs in Hindi and Oriya for music director Kajol-Saroj. She has also sung the Tamil version of Mann Mohana from the hindi film Jodhaa Akbar. Her other notable recent solo Tamil song is Sutri Varum Bhoomi from the Vidhyasagar composed Jeyam Kondaan. Ilayaraja composed tamil film Naan Kadavul had a great song Amma Un Pillai in her voice very recently.
In her early days as a singer, her voice at high octaves was thought to be similar to that of Lata Mangeshkar while her low octave voice was that of Asha Bhosle. However, as time passed Sargam developed her own distinct style. It is believed that Sadhana Sargam was unwittingly responsible for the rift between music greats Kalyanji-Anandji and Lata Mangeshkar when the duo compared Sargam with Mangeshkar. Mangheskar thought the comparing herself with a much junior teenage singer was unacceptable. Regardless of the above said incident, both singers have mutual respect for each other.
Sadhana Sargam was well received in Tamil Nadu. She is very busy in the Tamil music field. Among the Bollywood singers males or females, Sargam sang the most number of songs in Tamil music field. 132 songs of Sargam was listed as of August 2008[2]
In an interview in May 2007 while touring in the USA, the most celebrated composer of the Indian music industry, Mr. A. R. Rahman, complimented Sadhana Sargam, calling her the only Indian singer who could surpass his imaginations and expectations in her renditions of songs"It is one of my few scores that was not well released," Rahman says. "The songs were well used in the film but they did not reach the listeners in significant numbers." The numbers were sung by Sukhvinder Singh (who also wrote couple of lyrics) and Sadhana Sargam among others.
"She is one of the few singers who has surprised me at every turn," Rahman says. "Many singers do a very good job of doing exactly what I tell them to do but she somehow goes beyond instructions. She takes a song to another level effortlessly, and she is so good at it that I am surprised every time I work with her."
