In 1968-69, when Usha Uthup was preparing for her opening night at Trincas on Park Street, her soon-to-be-husband requested her to sing Harry Belafonte’s ‘Matilda’. She knew the song, having heard the American singer’s 1959 album Belafonte at Carnegie Hall.
Calling the singer-actor-human rights activist’s passing at 96 as “quite a heartbreak”, she says he has singularly been her inspiration to be a performer and entertainer. “He was the greatest, not just because of his voice or the way he sang, but because of the way he connected to the audience,” says the Kolkata-based singer. “I was all of 21 when I began to sing his songs and throughout my career of more than 50 years, when people have asked me who is my inspiration, the only name I had to give was Harry Belafonte — and Radio Ceylon.”
