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S. Janaki

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S. Janaki
Janaki in 2007
Born
Sishtla Sreeramamurthy Janaki

(1938-04-23) 23 April 1938 (age 86)
Repalle, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India
Other namesJanakiamma, Nightingale of south India, Gaanakogile, Gaanasudhe, Gaanasaraswathi, Melody Queen of South India
Occupation(s)Playback Singer, Vocalist
Years active1957–present
SpouseV. Ramprasad (1958–1990)(his death)
ChildrenMurali Krishna (b.1960)
RelativesGarimella Balakrishna Prasad (Nephew)
Uma Muralikrishna (Daughter-in-law)
Websitesjanaki.net

Sishtla Sreeramamurthy Janaki (born 23 April 1938), popularly known as S. Janaki, is an Indian legendary playback singer, and occasional music-composer. She's from Andhra Pradesh and is one of the best-known playback singers in South India who has recorded 48,000 songs in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Odiya, Hindi, Bengali, Tulu, Sanskrit, Sinhalese, Badaga, Punjabi, Urdu, Japanese, German, Latin and Arabic languages. Janaki started her career in 1957 and has spanned over six decades. She has recorded songs in more than seventeen regional Indian languages and foreign languages.[1] She has won four National Film Awards and 33 different State Film Awards.[2] Her association with singer S. P. Balasubrahmanyam and composer Ilaiyaraaja is well known. In the 1960s and 1970s, her duets with P.B.Srinivas were some of the most romantic duets in the history of Tamil and Kannada film music.[3]

S. Janaki, who is known as "The Nightingale of the South",[4] is a recipient of an honorary doctorate[5] from the University of Mysore and the Kalaimamani award from Tamil Nadu State Government. S.Janaki is called the Queen of Expressions for her ability to express different kind of emotions. In 1970s and 1980's, her duets with Dr.Rajkumar and with S. P. Balasubrahmanyam in the 1980s are considered some of the evergreen songs in the history of Kannada cinema.

In 2013, she refused the offer of a Padma Bhushan award by the Government of India, saying that it had come "too late" and that South Indian artists were not given their due recognition.[6]

A book titled, 'Aalpanathile Thenum Vayambum', authored by Abhilash Pudukad and published by Logos Books details the singing, life and songs of S. Janaki.[7][8] This book has got world record for having highest discussion of songs of an Indian female singer S .Janaki in two volumes.

Early life

S. Janaki was born on 23 April 1938 in a Telugu-speaking family in Pallapatla, Repalle Town, in Guntur, Madras Presidency, British India (now in Andhra Pradesh).[9] She was interested in music from early age and started performing at the age of three. She learnt music from Sree Paidiswamy, a nadaswaram teacher.[citation needed]

Singing career

In her twenties, S. Janaki moved to Chennai on the advice of her uncle Dr. Chandrashekar and joined AVM Studios as a singer. She started her career in movies as a playback singer in the Tamil movie Vidhiyin Vilayattu in 1957. Subsequently, she performed in the Telugu movie MLA.[citation needed] She did sing film songs in six languages in her very first year! With her inbuilt flair for languages and mind blowing grasping skills, it was always a bulls eye for S Janaki, The Singing Stalwart. She has also recorded devotional music of Meera.[10] She picked a Malayalam lullaby "Amma poovinum..."[11] from 10 Kalpanakal as her swan song for the long 60 years of singing career and retired on 22 September 2016.[12]

Success

Janaki was increasingly given work by music directors such as M. S. Viswanathan, K. V. Mahadevan, Sankar Ganesh, V. Kumar, etc.. But her combination with M S Baburaj in Malayalam is equalled to that of Lata- Madan Mohan in Hindi film music by many music critics. From the late 1970s to the mid-1990s she formed a strong singer-composer partnership with Ilayaraja in Tamil and Telugu. She was the favorite singer of Kannada music director G K Venkatesh and Rajan Nagendra and sung innumerable hits for them in Kannada. Renowned as "Nightingale of South India" S Janaki has given many classics. She has a style of her own and is known for the unique ability to modify her voice.

Toughest song of Janaki's career

As Janaki has mentioned on many occasions that the toughest song of her entire singing career is the Kannada song "Shiva shiva ennada naaligeyeke" from the movie Hemavathi. The song, which is in two different ragas, Thodi and Aabhogi, was composed by L. Vaidyanathan. Janaki had prayed to her beloved god before going to record this unique song.[13][14] While talking about this song, K.S. Chitra said that Nobody can touch this song, it is not bad even if we wash her feet for her ability to sing such a difficult song.

Personal life

S. Janaki is married to V. Ramprasad in 1958. He died in 1990. Currently, Janaki lives in Hyderabad with her son Murali Krishna.

Awards and honours

Awards
Awards Wins
National Film Awards
 4
Kerala State Film Awards
 11
Nandi Awards
 10
Tamil Nadu State Film Awards
 6
Karnataka Rajyotsava award
 1
Orissa State Film Awards
 1
Total
 33
National Film Awards
Mirchi Music Awards
Filmfare Awards South
Kerala State Film Awards
Nandi Awards
Tamil Nadu State Film Awards
Orissa State Film Awards
Filmfare Awards
Special Honours
Other Awards

Collaboration

Most of S. Janaki's songs have been with S.P. Balasubrahmanyam. However, in the South Indian film industry, she also had a large amount of duets with Dr. Rajkumar, T.M. Soundararajan, P.B. Sreenivas, K.J. Yesudas, P. Jayachandran, Malaysia Vasudevan, Sirkazhi Govindarajan, Mano, Ghantasala and Ilaiyaraaja, etc.

In the Tamil cinema, although she had sung with S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, Malaysia Vasudevan, T.M. Soundararajan, P.B. Sreenivas, Jayachandran and Ilaiyaraaja, she also had songs with singers like Unni Menon, Krishnachandran, P. Unnikrishnan, Shankar Mahadevan, Srinivas (singer), M.G. Sreekumar, Hariharan (singer), and Dhanush.

In the Hindi cinema, although she also sang a few songs with S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, she also sang some songs with Kishore Kumar, Amit Kumar, Suresh Wadkar, Bappi Lahiri, Mohammed Aziz, and Udit Narayan.[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md8cPD2F1I8
  2. ^ "Singing straight from the heart". Chennai, India: The Hindu. 5 April 2007. Retrieved 30 December 2010. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  3. ^ ""Kavidaye Padalaga," presented by poet and film lyricist Vairamuthu, this evening, will transform poetry into song". The Hindu. 27 July 2004. Retrieved 11 August 2012.
  4. ^ Jayakumar, G. (18 April 2008). "Sing in your natural voice". The Hindu.
  5. ^ "Kannada composers laud S Janaki for doctorate honor". Zee News. Retrieved 11 August 2012.
  6. ^ a b "Veteran singer S Janaki refuses to accept Padma Awards". CNN-IBN. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  7. ^ "Book to be released about S Janaki". India Times. 9 September 2015.
  8. ^ "Aalapanathile Thenum Vayambum". Malayala Manorama. 9 September 2015.
  9. ^ "Timeless voice". The Hindu. Chennai, India. 29 June 2007.
  10. ^ "Happy B'day Janaki – Tamil Movie News". IndiaGlitz. Retrieved 25 February 2012.
  11. ^ Malayalam Muzik247 (3 October 2016), Pathu Kalpanakal | Ammapoovinum Song Video | Janaki Amma | Anoop Menon, Meera Jasmine | Official, retrieved 9 October 2016{{citation}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/i-have-sung-enough-s-janaki/article9140934.ece
  13. ^ http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/15504
  14. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiMV6UH66Xk
  15. ^ "Lifetime Achievement Award (South) winners down the years..." filmfare.com. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  16. ^ "Vairamuthu, S Janaki – On-Spot: Vijay Music Awards 2012". Entertainment.in.msn.com. 5 November 2012. Retrieved 1 October 2013.
  17. ^ "MAA music life time achievement award 2013 to S Janaki – Telugu cinema news". Idlebrain.com. 19 January 2013. Retrieved 1 October 2013.
  18. ^ Eng, David (6 March 2013). "2013 Udaya Film Awards – winners". Chino Kino. Retrieved 1 October 2013.
  19. ^ a b "S Janaki Receive Award". indiaglitz.com. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  20. ^ http://www.dakshinamoorthysangeetholsavam.com/dakshinamoorthy-awards/. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
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