Jagjit
Singh is a name that has been considered as the Ghazal King. He has been
counted one amongst the most popular ghazal singers of the world. Jagjit Singh
was born on 8th February, in the year 1941 in Ganganagar, then in Rajputana in
British India. He was born to father Sardar Amar Singh Dhiman, who was employed
with the Government of India, hailed from Dalla village in Ropar district of
Punjab and his mother Bachchan Kaur came from a deeply religious Sikh family of
Ottallan village near Samralla. He has four sisters and a brother. Urdu,
Punjabi, Hindi languages, and Gujarati language are the languages in which
Jagjit Singh has executed songs.
It
was his father's wise decision to become a bureaucrat by joining the Indian
Administrative Service. Jagjit Singh studied at Khalsa High School at
Ganganagar. After passing matriculation, he studied Sciences from Government
College, Ganganagar and went for graduation to DAV College, Jalandhar in arts
stream. from Kurukshetra University, Haryana he also obtaind a post-graduate
degree in history. But Jagjit Singh's passion for music was with him since his
childhood. For two years in Ganganagar he received training in music under the
expert tutelage of Pandit Chaganlal Sharma. Then after he consecreted six years
to learning Khayal, Thumri and Dhrupad forms of Indian Classical Music from
Ustad Jamaal Khan of Sainia Gharana. Acknowledging his talent the Vice
Chancellor of Punjab and Kurukshetra University, Late Professor Suraj Bhan
supported him to persue music further.
Jagjit
Singh came down to Mumbai in the year 1965 with a dream of establishing himself
as a musician and singer as well. He jgot his early assignments to sing for
advertisement jingles or executing at weddings and parties. At the time in the
1970s the world of ghazal singing was rulling by the legendary singers like
Noor Jehan, Malika Pukhraj, Begum Akhtar,Talat Mahmood and Mehdi Hassan. But
with a hardcore struggle Jagjit Singh finally managed to carve a distinct place
for himself in the arena. In the year 1976, his first album, The Unforgettables
(On HMV LP Records) was a big hit and since then he had never looked back. The
album was entirely a ghazal album but the vehemence on melody and a fresh voice
like Jagjit Singh can be considered as the jump from the tradition old style of
ghazal rendition.
The tradition old style of ghazal singing can be charecterised as 'heavily based on classical and semi-classical Indian music'. The album was a huge success though it received critical acclaimation, many criticisms. The album set new sales records. After a two year long courtship from the year 1967, finally Jagjit Singh and Chitra Singh got married. It has been said that, 'they epitomise the first successful husband-wife singing team'. The contribution of this singing duo towards altering the course of this genre of music known as 'Ghazal' can be termed as immense. They both together made this genre of music 'Ghazal' more 'ear friendly, melodic and enojoyable'. Ghazal became apprehensible with the execution of this duo. To know more read:
The tradition old style of ghazal singing can be charecterised as 'heavily based on classical and semi-classical Indian music'. The album was a huge success though it received critical acclaimation, many criticisms. The album set new sales records. After a two year long courtship from the year 1967, finally Jagjit Singh and Chitra Singh got married. It has been said that, 'they epitomise the first successful husband-wife singing team'. The contribution of this singing duo towards altering the course of this genre of music known as 'Ghazal' can be termed as immense. They both together made this genre of music 'Ghazal' more 'ear friendly, melodic and enojoyable'. Ghazal became apprehensible with the execution of this duo. To know more read:
