K J Yesudas

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Biography

Kattassery Joseph Yesudas (; born 10 January 1940) is an India n Indian classical music|classical music ian and playback singer .

Yesudas sings Indian classical, devotional, and popular music. He has recorded more than 50,000 songs in many languages including Malayalam language|Malayalam , Tamil language|Tamil , Hindi , Kannada language|Kannada , Telugu language|Telugu , Bengali language|Bengali , Gujarati language|Gujarati , Oriya language|Oriya , Marathi language|Marathi , Punjabi language|Punjabi , Sanskrit , Tulu language|Tulu , Malay language|Malay , Russian language|Russian , Arabic language|Arabic , Latin and English language|English during a career spanning five decades. He has performed in most Indian languages except Assamese language|Assamese , Konkani language|Konkani and Kashmiri language|Kashmiri . He also composed a number of Malayalam film songs in the 1970s and 1980s. Yesudas is fondly called Gana Gandharvan ()

He has won the National Film Award|National Award for the National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer|Best Male Playback Singer seven times (the most by any Indian singer), and the State Award for the Best Playback Singer 43 times which comprises of awards by the State Governments of Kerala(23), Tamil Nadu(8), Andhra Pradesh(6), Karnataka(5), and West Bengal(1).He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1975,followed by the Padma Bhushan in 2002 by the Government of India for his contributions towards the arts.

In 2006, he sang 16 film songs in four South Indian languages on the same day at AVM Studio, Chennai .

Early life and background

K. J. Yesudas was born in Fort Kochi , Kingdom of Cochin , into a Catholic Church|Catholic family, to Augustine Joseph and Alicekutty. His father, who was a well-known Malayalam classical musician and stage actor , was his first guru . Later he joined the RLV College of Music and Fine Arts|R.L.V. Music Academy in Thrippunithura and underwent training. Later he studied in Sree Swati Thirunal music college, Thiruvananthapuram under the training of Late Semmangudy Sreenivasa Iyer. But he could not complete his studies due to financial constrains. For a brief period, he was with Sri Vechur Hari Hara Subramania Iyer, after which he took advanced training from Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar .In 2011 he completed his 50 Years as a Play Back Singer.

Completed the Ganabooshanam course at R.L.V. Music Academy, Thripunithura, Cochin

Graduated from the Sree Swathithirunal Music Academy, Trivandrum

Trained under K. R. Kumaraswamy (former principal of the Music College, Kochi), Kunjuvelan Aasan (a disciple of Nadaswara Vidwan Rajaratnam Pillai), Augustine Joseph, Dekshinamoorthi Swamikal V. Dakshinamoorthy , Ramakutti Bagavathar, Sivaraman Nayar, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer and Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar .

Playback singing career

Debut and Early career: In 1960's

The first song by Yesudas is Jaathi Bhedam Matha Dwesham (music: M B Sreenivasan ) on 14th Nov 1961, which he usually sings in all the special occasions in front of the audience. Yesudas began his career in playback singer|playback singing in the Malayalam movie Kaalpadukal and Kollywood movies in the early 1960s.

He got the first break in his music career from the hit malayalam film named Bharya ( music by G. Devarajan and lyrics by Vayalar Ramavarma ). He sang in Tamil language|Tamil for Bommai first (music: Sundaram Balachander|S. Balachander ), but the first released movie was Konjum Kumari (music: Veda).

The trio combination of Salil-Yesudas and Prem Nazir (the evergreen hero of Malayalam Cinema) took the Malayalam Cinema Industry of the 70's by storm. As a matter of fact, it was generally agreed that Yesudas's voice was the most ideal one for Prem Nazir.

In 1970, he was nominated to head the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi|Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Academy and was the youngest person ever to occupy the post.

Bollywood entry: In 1970's

By the 1970s Yesudas entered Bollywood .His first Hindi song was for the movie Jai Jawan Jai Kissan (1971), but the first released movie was Chhoti Si Baat . He has sung Hindi songs for many leading actors in Hindi cinema including Amitabh Bachchan , Amol Palekar and Jeetendra . He has sung many evergreen Hindi film songs for music directors including Ravindra Jain , Bappi Lahiri , Khayyam , Rajkamal and Salil Chowdhury .

Yesudas's most popular Hindi songs are from the 1976 movie Chitchor, with music given by Ravindra Jain . The greatest tribute paid to him is cited during an interview with Ravindra Jain , wherein the blind music director confessed that if he ever happened to regain vision, the first person he would like to see was Yesudas.

Prominence over the world

Yesudas has performed in many major cities around the world. In 1965, he was invited by the Soviet Union government to perform at music concerts in various cities in the USSR and also sang a Russian song over Radio Kazakhstan. Yesudas became one of the senate members in the International Parliament for Safety and Peace .
On November 14, 1999, Yesudas was presented with an honorary award by UNESCO for "Outstanding Achievements in Music and Peace" at the "Music for Peace" event in Paris .a concert held to mark the dawn of the new millennium and whose attendees included artistes such as Lionel Richie , Ray Charles , Montserrat Caballé , and Zubin Mehta .

In 1971, during the Indo-Pakistani Wars|Indo-Pakistani War , Yesudas traveled all around Kerala with his musical troupe to raise funds for the Indian Prime Minister's National Defense Fund.

In 2001 he sang for album Ahimsa in Sanskrit , Latin and English and in a mix of styles including New Age music|New Age and Carnatic. In his music concerts in the Middle East he sings Arabic songs in the Carnatic music|Carnatic style. He frequently serves as a cultural ambassador for India through his performances abroad, promoting Indian music.

In 2009 Yesudas began a cross-country musical campaign against terrorism in Thiruvananthapuram, with the motto 'Music For Peace'.
Kavita Karkare, wife of Hemant Karkare , handed over the torch to Yesudas to mark the launch of the 'Shanthi Sangeetha Yatra'.

Personal life

Yesudas is married to Prabha. They have three sons, Vinod, Vijay and Vishal. The second son Vijay Yesudas is a budding musician who won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Singer|Kerala State Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer in 2007. The family is currently settled in Chennai and Trivandrum . He also owns estates in Fort Lauderdale, Florida , USA and Flower Mound, TX , USA for personal and business reasons.

Role models

Narayana Guru|Sree Narayana Guru ’s great message, "One caste, One religion and One God for all humanity", influenced young Yesudas in his dealings with his fellow men. He had his own heroes among the musicians too. Mohammed Rafi , Chembai|Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar , Mukesh and Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna|Balamurali Krishna are the ones he admires the most.

Spiritualism

For the past 30 years Yesudas has been visiting Mookambika|Kollur Mookambika temple , Udupi , Karnataka on his birthday to sing keerthans of Saraswati|Saraswati devi , the Goddess of knowledge, music and the arts. The music festival started on his 60th birthday. The nine-day music festival begins every January at Kollur Mookambika Temple.
On January 10, 2010, he celebrated his 70th birthday (Sapthathi) at Kollur Sri Mookambika Temple with ‘Sangeetharchana’ (classical devotional songs), along with 70 singers before goddess Mookambika on Sunday. The Sangeetharchana included "Pancharatna Gayana" of Thyagaraja’s poems. He also took part in the Vidyarambha function. All India Radio broadcasted the special Sangeetharchana all over Kerala.

Music company

In 1980 Yesudas established the Tharangani Studio at Trivandrum. In 1992 the office and studio were moved to Chennai , Tamil Nadu and the company was incorporated in the United States|US in 1998. Tharangni Studio and Tharangni Records became a recording center in Kerala which, for the first time, brought out audio cassettes of Malayalam film songs in stereo. The record company also had a voice mixing studio in Studio27, Chennai. The studio continues to produce and present events of Yesudas both for film and Indian classical music concerts throughout the world.

Notable facts

After winning the Kerala State Award for Best Playback singer on numerous occasions, he asked that he be ruled out of contention so that to give his peers and newcomers a chance of winning. Despite his request, he was still awarded this award multiple times in the following years.

Playback singer Unni Menon , who was singing track songs for other prominent singers, got a break when Yesudas, after hearing the track songs Unni Menon had sung for the Malayalam film Kadathu , asked the music director Shyam (composer)|Shyam to record and release the songs as they were. Yesudas was of the opinion that the songs did not need to be rendered by him, as Unni Menon had already done it well and there was no need for improvement.

Harivarasanam , a devotional song musical version composed by G. Devarajan , recited before closing the temple at Sabarimala was sung by Yesudas. Though there have been many different renditions of this song by many different renowned singers, Sabarimala officially uses K. J. Yesudas' voice for Harivarasanam every day.

Yesudas Award|Swaralaya Yesudas award is a prestigious award for music artists in recognition of their outstanding performance. The award is instituted jointly by Swaralaya, an organization that promotes music and Kairali TV|Kairali Channel , based in Trivandrum , Kerala . Awards have been given annually since 2000. Yesudas presents the awards at a Gandharva Sandhya every January.

Awards and honours

Yesudas has recorded over 50,000 songs and has won scores of accolades including the coveted Padma Shri (1975), Padma Bhushan (2002) and seven National Awards for Best Playback Singer. He is the only singer who has been accorded the title Asthana Gayakan (official singer) of Kerala|Kerala State .

National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer a record seven times by the Government of India

Kerala State Film Award for Best Singer|Kerala State Film Awards a record 24 times for the best playback singer by the Government of Kerala

Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Male Playback|Tamil Nadu State Film Awards five times for the best playback singer by the Government of Tamil Nadu

Nandi Award for Best Male Playback Singer|Andhra Pradesh State Film Awards four times for the best playback singer by the Government of Andhra Pradesh

Karnataka State Film Awards five times for the best playback singer by the Government of Karnataka

West Bengal State Film Awards one time for the best playback singer by the Government of West Bengal

Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1992)

D. Phil by Annamalai University|Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu (1989)

D. Litt by Kerala University|Kerala University, Kerala (2003)

D. Litt by Mahatma Gandhi University|Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala (2009)

Swaralaya - Eenam Awards 2010 - Decade's Best Talent in Malayalam Music

Swathi Sangeetha Puraskaram in 2011, highest music award given by Government of Kerala

Filmography

As Actor

Year !!Film !! Stars!! Director !! Role
1965
1965
1966
1977
2002
2005
1973

Discography

Copyright Citations

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