Bengaluru, Jul 11 (PTI) Legendary playback singer S Janaki leaves behind a rich musical legacy, having recorded over 48,000 songs during an illustrious career spanning more than six decades.
Born on April 23, 1938, at Pallapatla in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district, Janaki first performed on stage at the age of nine.
She began her professional playback singing career in 1957, at the age of 19, with the Tamil film ‘Vidhiyin Vilayattu’. In the same year, she recorded songs in six different languages.
Fondly known as “Janaki Amma” and celebrated as the “Nightingale of South India”, she sang in nearly 20 Indian languages — among them Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi and Bengali—over a career spanning more than 60 years, besides lending her voice to foreign-language songs in Japanese and German.
She collaborated with some of India’s most celebrated music composers across languages, such as Ilaiyaraaja, M S Viswanathan, A R Rahman, K V Mahadevan and R D Burman, among others.
Janaki shared a particularly successful association with Ilaiyaraaja, delivering several memorable songs composed by him — “Senthoora Poove”, “Inji Idupazhagi”, “Kaatril Enthan Geetham” and “Oru Sanam” in Tamil; “Jotheyali” and “I Love You (Jeeva Hoovagide)” in Kannada; and “Aayiram Kannumayi” in Malayalam.
Though she was highly popular in other South Indian languages, Janaki is said to have sung the most songs in her career in Kannada.
Her duets with legends such as P B Srinivas, S P Balasubrahmanyam and Dr Rajkumar are considered evergreen hits.
Janaki had famously cited the Kannada song “Shiva Shiva Ennada Naaligeyeke” from the film Hemavathi (1977), composed by L Vaidyanathan, as the most difficult of her career.
Fans in Karnataka called her “Gaana Kogile” (Singing Cuckoo).
Renowned for her exceptional vocal versatility, she could effortlessly adapt her voice to suit a range of characters and emotions, including rendering songs in a child’s voice, earning her the reputation as the “Queen of Expression and Modulation”.
During her distinguished career, Janaki won four National Film Awards and 33 State Film Awards, besides several other honours. She was also conferred the Rajyotsava Prashasti by the Karnataka government.
In 2013, she declined the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian award, saying the honour had come too late. She had maintained that her contribution to Indian music merited the Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian honour.
After the passing of her husband, V Ramprasad, in 1997, Janaki embraced a simple, elegant style — plain white or uncoloured sarees becoming her quiet, enduring signature for the rest of her life.
Janaki announced her retirement from playback singing and stage performances in 2016 at the age of 78, though she later recorded a song for the Tamil film ‘Pannaadi’ in 2018.
With a voice that transcended linguistic and regional boundaries, she remains one of India’s most accomplished and revered playback singers, whose songs continue to resonate across generations. PTI AMP KSU SSK
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