L R Eswari

She was born in Chennai into a Roman Catholic family to Anthony Devraj and Regina Mary Nirmala. Her ancestors were from Paramagudi near Madurai. Her full name is Lourde-Mary Rajeshwari. Since there was already another established singer with the name of M.S.Rajeshwari her name was abbreivated into L.R.Eshwari. She did not have any formal training in singing. Her mother was a chorus singer in films. Eshwari used to accompany her mother to the studios and soon began singing in the chorus herself, but quickly got a break to lend her voice as lead-singer. Her first break came from Sri K.V.Mahadevan in 1958 in the movie ‘Periya Idaththu Sammandham’, her first solo song recorded in this movie was ‘ivarey thaan avarey’. But major recognition came from the song ‘vaarai en thozhi vaaraayo’ from the movie ‘paasa malar’ (1961) sung under the baton of Viswanathan-Ramamurthy, which composers explored and exploited her vocal abilities to the maximum extent possible over the next 20 years.