Jagjit Singh Biography and Works.

Popularly known as ‘the Ghazal King’, Jagjit Singh was born on February 8, 1941.

He was a prominent Indian Ghazal singer, composer, music director, activist and entrepreneur.

He gained acclaim together with his wife, another renowned Indian ghazal singer, Chitra Singh in the 1970s and 1980s, as the first ever successful duo act.

He sung songs in Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Sindhi and Nepali languages. He was also awarded India’s third highest civilian honour, the Padma Bhushan, in 2003. He also received the Teacher’s Lifetime Achievement Award’ in 2006.

Singh is credited for the revival and popularity of ghazal by choosing poetry that was relevant to the masses and composing them in a way that laid more emphasis on the meaning of words and melody evoked by them.

He has composed music for many Bollywood movies including Prem Geet, Arth and Saath Saath, and also for TV serials Mirza Ghalib and Kahkashan.

He is the only composer and singer to have composed and recorded songs written by a Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee.

He expired on October 10, 2011 due to cerebral haemorrhage. The singer is survived by wife Chitra Singh. Their only son Vivek died in a car accident in the 1990s.

Trivia

He lent active support to several philanthropic endeavours, such as the library at St. Mary’s School, Mumbai, Bombay Hospital, CRY, Save the Children and the ALMA.