KJ Yesudas celebrates birthday at Mookambika


Tuesday, January 10, 2012: Iconic playback singer and Carnatic exponent KJ Yesudas turned 72 on Tuesday, marked by a quiet birthday at Mookambika temple at Kollur.
The top-notch singer, who has rendered over 40,000 film songs in Malayalam and other Indian languages in a career spanning five decades, offered prayers with his family members at the temple this morning, sources close to Yesudas said.
Rahman, in a tribute to the veteran playback singer who is fondly called Gana Gandharvanan, once said: The most beautiful voice in the world is that of Yesudas.
Born on January 10, 1940 in Fort Kochi as son of actor-singer Augustin Joseph and Elizabeth, Yesudas took early lessons from his father before encounters with leading singers and actors of those days.
After completing schooling at St. Sebasitan High School at Palluruthi, he took music as his main subject joining RLV Music College and later in the Government Music College in Thiruvananthapuram from where he graduated with first rank.
In a singing career that began in 1961, he is the only singer who has bagged seven National Film Awards for best singer in the Indian film industry, a record no singer has equalled, let alone surpassed. While five of the national awards come for singing in Malayalam films, in 1977 he won the award for the song Gori tera gaon bada pyaraa from the Hindi film Chitchora and in 1983 for a song in the Telegu film Meghasandesham.

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