Get the latest gossip

‘I sexed it up’: 1970s disco queen Asha Puthli on Warhol, Dali and influencing Donna Summer

Her spacey jazz-disco almost made her a huge star in the mid-1970s. Now having a long-awaited renaissance, Puthli reflects on working with Ornette Coleman and inspiring young south Asian artists

Puthli says she enjoyed the provocation of the Factory scene: she starred in a short with Woodlawn and, briefly continuing her film starlet phase, appeared semi-nude in the satirical romp Savages, which got banned in her homeland. Born in Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1945, she studied opera as well as Indian classical dance and singing – specifically the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana closed-throat style, which is what gives her music (and plenty of other disco songs after it) a distinctive, feather-like quality. Puthli is tight-lipped about any other love affairs outside her marriages – “save it for when you want blood on the pages,” she purrs – though she does remember the time that Salvador Dalí chased after her down the street, spellbound by the sight of her in a homemade pillowcase skirt.

Get the Android app