K. J. Yesudas was born in Fort Kochi, in the erstwhile Kingdom of Cochin (now Kerala), in a Latin-rite Roman Catholic Christian family to late Augustine Joseph and late Elizabeth Joseph. His father, a well-known Malayalam classical musician and stage actor, was his first guru (teacher). Yesudas was the eldest of five children, and was followed by three younger brothers and a younger sister.
He started his academic music training at R.L.V. Music Academy, Thrippunithura. Later he studied at Swathi Thirunal College of Music, Thiruvananthapuram under the tutelage of the carnatic music maestro late Sh. K.R. Kumaraswamy Iyer and the late Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer
but could not complete his studies due to financial constraints. For a
brief period, he also studied music under Sri Vechur Harihara Subramania
Iyer, after which he took advanced training from Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar. He completed the Ganabooshanam course at R.L.V. Music Academy, Thripunithura, Cochin and continued studies at Sree Swathithirunal Music Academy, Trivandrum under the tutelage of the carnatic music maestro late Sh. K.R.Kumaraswamy Iyer.
In 2011 Yesudas completed his 50 years as a playback singer.
He has performed in most Indian languages except Assamese, Konkani and Kashmiri. He also composed a number of Malayalam film songs in the 1970s and 1980s. Yesudas is fondly called Gana Gandharvan (The Celestial Singer). He is considered to be a cultural icon of the Malayalam
language - as well as of its ethnic group spread across the world -
largely due to the fact that his songs have been ingrained into the
minds of Malayalam speaking people for five decades.
Yesudas won the National Award for the Best Male Playback Singer seven times, the Filmfare Awards
five times, and the State Award for the Best Playback Singer
forty-three times, including awards given by the state governments of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and West Bengal. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1977, the Padma Bhushan in 2002, and the Padma Vibhushan (second-highest civilian award) in 2017 by the Government of India for his contributions towards the arts. In 2011 Yesudas was honoured with the CNN-IBN outstanding achievement award having recorded over 20,000 songs in a five-decade career. In 2006, he sang 16 film songs in four South Indian languages on the same day at AVM Studio, Chennai.
Yesudas recorded his first popular song Jaathi Bhedam Matha Dwesham (music: M B Sreenivasan)
on 14th November 1961. However, his first popular song was 'Attention
Penne Attention', which he sang for a Malayalam film with Santha P. Nair, a veteran singer of that time. Thus began his career in playback singing which included the Malayalam movie Kaalpadukal (1962) and Tamil, Telugu and Kannada movies thereafter.
He got the first major break with the hit Malayalam film named Bharya ( music by G. Devarajan and lyrics by Vayalar Ramavarma). In 1967, he sang hit songs in the composition of M.S.Baburaj for the film Udhyogastha directed by P.Venu. He also sang in Tamil for Bommai first (music: S. Balachander), but the first released movie was Konjum Kumari (music: Veda). 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.[10] The trio of Salil, Yesudas and Prem Nazir entered the Malayalam Cinema Industry of the 1970s.
In 1970 he was nominated to head the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Academy and was the youngest person ever to occupy the post.
Bollywood: 1970s
After a decade of singing in South Indian movies, Yesudas got a break in Bollywood in the early 1970s. The first Hindi song he sang was for the movie Jai Jawan Jai Kissan (1971), but the first released movie was Chhoti Si Baat,
which resulted in his becoming popular for singings songs like
"Jaaneman Jaaneman". 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' most popular Hindi songs are in the 1976 movie Chitchor, with music given by Ravindra Jain.
On 14 November 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 2001 he sang for album Ahimsa in Sanskrit, Latin and English and in a mix of styles including new-age and Carnatic. In his music concerts in the Middle East he sings Arabic songs in the 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'.[14] Kavita Karkare, wife of Hemant Karkare, handed over the torch to Yesudas to mark the launch of the 'Shanthi Sangeetha Yatra'. Yesudas has performed for 36 times in the 36-year-old Soorya Music festival organised by Soorya Krishnamoorthy.
Awards and honours
Yesudas has recorded over 70,000 songs and has won scores of accolades including the coveted Padma Shri (1975), Padma Bhushan (2002), Padma Vibhushan (2017) 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.
- National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer a record seven times by the Government of India
- Kerala State Film Award for Best Singer a record 25 times for the best playback singer by the Government of Kerala
- J. C. Daniel Award from Government of Kerala
- Andhra Pradesh State Film Awards four times for the best playback singer by the Government of Andhra Pradesh
- Tamil Nadu State Film Awards five times for the best playback singer by the Government of Tamil Nadu
- West Bengal State Film Awards one time for the best playback singer by the Government of West Bengal
- Sangeetha Kalasikhamani, 2002 by The Indian Fine arts Society, Chennai
- Swaralaya Yesudas award is a prestigious award for music artists in recognition of their outstanding performance. The award is instituted jointly by Swaralaya, an organisation 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.
