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S. Janaki
Janaki in 2007
Background information
Born	(1938-04-23) April 23, 1938 (age 74) Guntur, Madras Presidency, British India
Genres	Playback singing, Indian classical
Occupations	Singer
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1957–present

Sishta Sreeramamurthy Janaki, popularly known as S. Janaki (Telugu: స. జానకి , born April 23, 1938) is an Indian playback singer. She is a recipient of Honorary doctorate^[1] and Kalaimamani from Tamil Nadu State Government. Renowned for her voice modulation abilities, she has sung in many Indian languages, most frequently in Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Hindi.^[2]

Throughout a career spanning more than five decades, she has recorded over 20,000 songs, won four National Film Awards and 31 different State Film Awards.^[3] Her association with singer S. P. Balasubramanyam and composer Ilaiyaraaja is among the most popular musical combinations in South India.^[4] She is fondly better known as, "The Nightingale of the South".^[5][6]

Early life[link]

S. Janaki was born into a Telugu Brahmin family in Pallapatla, Repalle village, in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh.^[7] Her father Sishta Sreeramamurthy was an Ayurveda doctor. She was interested in music from early age and started performing at the age of three. She learned music from Sree Paidiswamy, a Nadaswaram Vidwan for only one year.She was inspired from film music and used to render songs of Lata Mangeshkar ,P Leela,Jikki and P Susheela on stage before entering film world .

Singing career[link]

S Janaki^[8] started singing in movies at the age of 19.^[9] She later moved to Chennai on the advice of her uncle Chandrashekar and joined AVM Studios as a singer. She started her career in movies by singing songs composed by T. Chalapati Rao in the Tamil movie Vidhiyin Vilayattu in 1957. Subsequently, she performed in the Telugu movie MLA. "Singara velane deva" made her singing star over night. She sang several memorable duets with P B Srinivas and rarely with T M Soundarrajan, A M Rajah & Ghantasala during 60's. Janaki became one of the most preferred female singers of south India from 1970s. Janaki went on to become one of the most favorite singers of Ilayaraja, and a phase ensued when she sang at least 2 to 3 songs per movie in all the four South Indian languages.

She sang in almost every major South Indian movie in the 1980s and 1990s. From late 1970s, for more than two decades, she was the top female singer in south Indian films. She won several awards from government and private institutions during this period. She has a record of maximum singing compared to any other female singer in the Malayalam and Kannada film industry and she also holds the record of singing the most difficult song in South Films i.e. Shiva Shiva Ennada from the Kannada movie Hemavathi.^[10]

S Janaki started being noticed by all in Malayalam industry from early 60's. M S Baburaj reserved his best compositions to her and made her a house hold name in Kerala. Their combination brought great melodies which stood test of time. She went on to record hits for M B Srinivasan, M S Viswanathan, Ilayaraja, Johnson, Ravindran, Dakshinamurthy, M K Arjunan, A T Ummer, Shyam and many others. Her duets with K J Yesudas, P Jayachandran topped the charts and remained as all time hits. She won awards almost every year for a decade in Malayalam. She remained as undisputed melody queen of Malayalam film industry from late 60's to late 80's.

Her career in Kannada industry was equally, if not more successful. She reigned the Kannada music till late eighties. She continued to give some hits in 90's as well. She was present in almost every album of G K Venkatesh and Rajan nagendran. M Rangarao, Upendrakumar, Vijayabhaskar also gave her excellent melodies. Hamslekha used her singing talent in several albums, which were huge hits. Her duets with S P Balasubramanium, PBS and Rajkumar are immensely popular till date. Rajan Nagendra-SPB-Janaki is considered to be most successful team to produce several unforgettable duets.

While speaking about her career, her contribution to Telugu and Tamil cinema cannot be ignored. Though she was singing from late 50's and delivering rare hits in these languages, popular songs in combination of Ilayaraja brought her lot of fame in these two languages in mid 70's. Her vocal skills were tested to core and she won every time in songs of Ilayaraja. Her smile/laugh, sensuous notes, alaaps/humming were used to a major extent. Other music directors like Chakravarthy, Sathyam, Ramesh Naidu, M S Viswanathan, K V Mahadevan, Shankar Ganesh joined Ilayajaja in 80's to give some of their career best melodies to Janaki. She rendered several semi-classical numbers also with lot of ease during this period. She delivered several hits with SP Balasubramanyam, Malaysia Vasudevan, K J Yesudas, Jayachandran, Mano, Arunmozhi etc in Tamil. She also sang super hit duets with actors like Kamal hasan, Rajni Kanth etc. Her duets were very popular and some of them were major reasons for success of several movies. She continued to deliver hits with younger generation of music directors like Madhavapeddi Suresh, Vandemataram Srinivas, Raj-Koti, Deva, S A Rajkumar, Yuvan Shankar Raja etc. She also sang few songs in music of A R Rahman and they were very popular.

She was invited to Hindi film industry by Bappi Lahri for Saheb movie, where she delivered super hit "Yaar bina chain kahare". She sang around 100 songs in music of Jaidev, Lakshmikanth pyarelal, R D Burman, Ravindra Jain, O P Nayyar, Bappi Lahri, Anu Malik and others. She recorded duets with Mhd Rafi(in Telugu movies), Kishore Kumar, Mannadey, Bhupinder, Manhar Udas, Amit Kumar, Suresh Wadkar, Mohd Aziz, Udit Narayan, Shankar Mahadevan and others. But she personally preferred singing south Indian songs as she was getting them with better quality at that time .

She also penned many songs for Tamil and Telugu albums as she was extremely good in both the languages.^[11] She has also sung in Sinhalese, Bengali, Oriya, English, Sanskrit, Konkani, Tulu, Saurashtra, Baduga, Japanese and German.^[12]

As a devotee of Lord Krishna and Shirdi Sai Baba, she has also recorded Hindu devotional music of Meera.^[12] She released albums with songs of Meera, Tulsidas, Surdas & Kabir Das. She released 3 classical albums with songs of Thyagaraja Swamy, Muthuswamy Deekshithar and Swathi Thirunal. She has sung Devaranamas of Purandara Dasa and worked for restoring Ramadasa Keertanalu. She worked with Balakrishna Prasad and sang some of the finest anamacharya keerthanas for him. She rendered several devotional albums apart from these classical albums. She has sung for television and radio programs as well and won awards for best play back from Andhra Pradesh state government for TV Serials .

Her contemporaries include Malaysia Vasudevan, S.P.Balasubramanyam, P B Srinivas, Rajkumar, Ghantasala, T. M. Soundararajan, P. Susheela, Vani Jayaram, K J Yesudas, L R Eeswari, P. Jayachandran, P. Leela, K. S. Chithra, Uma Ramanan, Swarnalatha, Sujatha, Hariharan, Unni Krishnan, Srinivas, Unni Menon and Jency

Telugu Partial Discography[link]

She has rendered magical melodies like Nee leela padeda (Muripinche muvvalu), Pagale vennala (Pooja Phalam), Naravara Kuruvara (Narthanasala), Pagalaithe doravera (Bangaru panjaram), Gunaamamidi komma meeda (Bala mithrula katha), Meghama dehama (Manchu pallaki), Kallalo unnadedo (Anthu leni katha), Mansasa thulli padake (Srivariki premalekha), Ee Duryodhana (Prathighatana), Jabilli kosam (Manchi manasulu), Sirmalle poova (Padaharella vayasu), Nemaliki nerpina nadakalivi (Sapthapadi), Sree Sharadhamba (Sruthilayalu), Mavayya Vasathadanta (Ramachilaka), sinni sinni korikaladaga (Swayam Krushi) and many more . Her duet hits include Nadireyi ye jamulo, Okasari kalaloki ravayya, Ee Pagalu reyiga , Nee Aasa Adiyasa , Emo Emo idi (with Ghnatasala); Andala oh chandamama ravoyi, Andamaina bava, Entha madhura seema (with P B Srinivas); Veena venuvaina, Ravi Varmake andani, Rasanu premalekhelanno, Sirimalle poovalle navvu, Mounamelanoyi , Aliveni animuthayama and many more (with SPB) ; Jivvumani konda gali , Mila Mila merisina thara (with Mano); Sari leru neekevaaru , Aaara neekuma ii deepam, Nallavaade amma allari pillavade (with P Susheela); Gudilona naa swamy (with LR Eswari) and many more hits . Some of the movies which has hits that brought her very close to new generation are listed here...

Personal life[link]

S. Janaki was married to V. Ramprasad. She is now settled in Chennai with her son Murali Krishna, who acted in a few films and has an audio business of his own, and his wife Uma Murali Krishna, a classical dancer (Bharatnatyam and Kuchipudi); they have two daughters named Amruthavarshini and Apsara. She is known for her simplicity and down to earth behaviour.

She is also a close relative of Carnatic classical vocalist Garimella Balakrishna Prasad.^[13]

Major awards[link]

State Awards[link]

• Nandi Award for Best Female Playback Singer - 10 times
• Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Female Playback - 7 times
• Oriya State Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer - 1 time
• Kerala State Film Award for Best Singer - 13 times

National Film Awards[link]

• 1977 - Best Female Playback Singer - (Song: "Senthoora Poove") 16 Vayathinile, Tamil Film
• 1981 - Best Female Playback Singer - (Song: "Ettumanoorambalathil") Oppol, Malayalam Film
• 1984 - Best Female Playback Singer - (Song: "Vennello godari andham") Sithara, Telugu Film
• 1992 - Best Female Playback Singer - (Song: "Inji Iduppazhagha") Devar Magan, Tamil Film

Other awards[link]

• 1986 - Kalaimamani from the Government of Tamil Nadu
• 1997 - Filmfare South Life time achievement award
• 2002 - Cinema 'Achiever Award' from the Government of Kerala
• 2005 - Special Jury Swaralaya Yesudas Award for outstanding performance in music
• 2009 - Honorary doctorate from the University of Mysore for contributions to Kannada Cinema
• 2011 - "Basava Bhushan" Award from Karnataka

References[link]

External links[link]

• S. Janaki at the Internet Movie Database

Further reading[link]

• An exclusive website on S. Janaki www.sjanaki.net
• A website on S. Janaki (unofficial)
• An article on S. Janaki
• Listen to Janaki and others Tamil/Hindi/Telugu Songs
• 729 malayalam solos of S Janaki
• All 1256 malayalam songs of S Janaki
• S Janaki at MSI