| K. J. Yesudas | |
|---|---|
K. J. Yesudas |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Kattassery Joseph Yesudas |
| Also known as | Gana Gandharvan, Dasettan |
| Born | 10 January 1940 Fort Kochi, Cochin, Indian Empire |
| Origin | Kochi, Kerala, India |
| Genres | Indian classical music, playback singing, music director[1] |
| Occupations | Singer, composer |
| Years active | 1961-present |
| Website | www.yesudas.com |
Kattassery Joseph Yesudas (Malayalam: കാട്ടശ്ശേരി ജോസഫ് യേശുദാസ്; born 10 January 1940) is an Indian classical musician and playback singer.
Yesudas sings Indian classical, devotional, and popular music. He has recorded more than 50,000 songs in many languages including Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati, Oriya, Marathi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tulu, Malay, Russian, Arabic, Latin and English during a career spanning five decades.[2][3] He has performed in most Indian languages except Assamese, Konkani and Kashmiri.[4][5] He also composed a number of Malayalam film songs in the 1970s and 1980s.[1] He is fondly called Gana Gandharvan (English: The Celestial Singer).
He has won the National Award for the Best Male Playback Singer seven times, the most by any Indian singer, and the State Award for the Best Playback Singer more than thirty times by the Governments of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and West Bengal. In 2002, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India for his contributions towards the arts.[6]
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K. J. Yesudas was born in Fort Kochi, Kingdom of Cochin, into a 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 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.
The first song recorded 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 singing in the Malayalam movie Kaalpadukal[3] and Kollywood movies in the early 1960s. He sang in Tamil for Bommai first (music: S. Balachander), but the first released movie was Konjum Kumari (music: Veda). By the 1970s he 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. In 2006, he sang 16 film songs in four South Indian languages on the same day at AVM Studio, Chennai.[7]
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 on Radio Kazakhstan. In 2001 he sang for album Ahimsa in Sanskrit, Latin and English and in a mix of styles including New Age and Carnatic.[8] In his music concerts in the Middle East he sings Arabic songs in the Carnatic style.[9] He frequently serves as a cultural ambassador for India through his performances abroad, promoting Indian music.
In 1970, he was nominated to head the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Academy and was the youngest person ever to occupy the post. In 1971, during the Indo-Pakistani War, Yesudas traveled all around Kerala with his musical troupe to raise funds for the Indian Prime Minister's National Defense Fund. He also became Senate member of International Parliament for Safety and Peace.[10] On 14 November 1999, UNESCO presented Yesudas with an honorary award for "Outstanding Achievements in Music and Peace"[11] 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 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'.[12]
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 Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar, Mukesh and Balamurali Krishna are the ones he admires the most.[13]
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 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.
Yesudas has recorded over 50,000 songs and has won scores of accolades including the coveted Padma Shri (1975), Padma Bhushan (2002)[14] 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 State.
| Year | Film | Stars | Director | Role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1965 | Kavyamela | Prem Nazir | M. Krishnan Nair | as himself |
| 1965 | Anarkali[15] | Prem Nazir | Kunchacko | Tansen |
| 1966 | Kayamkulam Kochunni | Sathyan | P. A. Thomas | as a Kochunni's brother-in-law |
| 1977 | Nirakudam | Kamal Haasan | A. Bhimsingh | as himself |
| 2002 | Nandanam | Prithviraj | Ranjith | as himself |
| 2005 | Boyy Friend | Manikuttan | Vinayan | as himself |
| 1973 | Achaani | Prem Nazir | P.Bhaskaran | as singer |
For the past 30 years Yesudas has been visiting Kollur Mookambika temple, Udupi, Karnataka on his birthday to sing keerthans of 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.[16] [17] [18] [19]
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 Channel, based in Trivandrum, Kerala. Awards have been given annually since 2000. Yesudas presents the awards at a Gandharva Sandhya every January.[20][21][22]
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 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.[23]
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