Kattassery Joseph Yesudas; born 10 January 1940) is an Indian classical musician and a playback singer. He has won the National Award for the best male playback singer seven times, the most by any singer and the State Award for the best playback singer more than thirty times by the Government of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. Yesudas sings Indian classical music, devotional and popular songs. He has recorded more than 55,000 songs (One of the highest in Music history around the world) in many languages including Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati, Oriya, Marathi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tulu, Malay, Russian, Arabic, Latin and English through his long career spanning Five Decades. He has been singing for most Indian languages except Assamese, Konkani and Kashmiri. He also composed number of Malayalam film songs in 70’s and 80’s. He is fondly called Gana Gandharvan (The Celestial Singer).

K. J. Yesudas was born in Fort Kochi, Kingdom of Cochin, into a Latin Rite Catholic family, to Augustine Joseph and Alicekutty. His father, who was a well-known Malayalam classical musician and stage actor, was his first guru. Later he joined the R.L.V.Music Academy in Thrippunithura and underwent training. For a brief period, he was with Sri Vechur Hari Hara Subramania Iyer after which he took advanced training from Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar, a maestro of Classical Music. Although he is a Carnatic Music expert, he mastered Hindustani Music also. He has taken the words of Sree Narayana Guru, “One caste, One religion and One God for all humanity” to heart.

Yesudas began his career in playback singing in the Malayalam movie Kaalpadukal and Kollywood movies in the early ’60s (He sang for Bommai first (Music : S. Balachander), but the first released movie was ‘Konjum Kumari’(Music : Veda))and by ’70s he entered Bollywood.

The first Hindi song was for the movie ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kissan’ (1971), but the first released movie was ‘Chhoti Si Baat’. He has sung Hindi songs for many leading actors in Hindi cinema including Amitabh Bachchan, Amol Palekar, Jeetendra and so on. He has sung many evergreen Hindi film songs for many popular music directors including Ravindra Jain, Bappi Lahiri, Khayyam, Rajkamal and Salil Chowdhury Almost all of the Hindi movie songs that he sang are popular even today. He has bagged seven National Film Awards for the best singer in the Indian film industry which is a record no singer has equalled, let alone surpassed. In 2006, he sang 16 film songs in four South Indian languages on the same day at AVM Studio, Chennai.

Yesudas has performed in many major cities around the world. In 1965, he was invited by the Soviet Union government to perform at music concerts in various cities in the USSR and also sang a Russian song over Radio Kazakhstan. In 2001 he sang for album Ahimsa in Sanskrit, Latin and English and in a mix of styles including New-Age and Carnatic. In his music concerts in the Middle East he sings Arabic songs in the Carnatic style. He frequently did the role of a cultural ambassador of India through his numerable performances abroad by promoting Indian Music.

In 1970, he was nominated to head the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Academy and was the youngest person ever to occupy the post. In 1971, during the Indo-Pakistani War, Yesudas traveled all around Kerala with his musical troupe to raise funds for the Indian Prime Minister’s National Defense Fund. He also became Senate member of International Parliament for Safety and Peace. On 14 November 1999, UNESCO presented Yesudas with an honorary award for “Outstanding Achievements in Music and Peace” at the “Music for Peace” event in Paris, a concert held to mark the dawn of the new millennium and whose attendees included artistes such as Lionel Richie, Ray Charles, Montserrat Caballé, and Zubin Mehta. In 2009 Yesudas began a cross-country musical campaign against terrorism in Thiruvananthapuram, with the motto ‘Music For Peace’. Kavita Karkare, wife of Hemant Karkare, handed over the torch to Yesudas to mark the launch of the ‘ Shanthi Sangeetha Yatra’.

Because of his immense talent and popularity he is often preferred by music directors/producers to render the songs which require the power factor and extreme variations in ragas mainly in the big budget movies. The song “Aadiyusha sandhya” from the movie Pazhassi Raja is an example for his voice clarity even at the age of 69.Thiruvarur Bakthavathsalam, a well known mridangam maestro, has accompanied him in many concerts.

Endowed with a “divine” voice and a penchant for hard work, it was a triumphant journey for him, becoming one of the most recorded artists ever. After recording over 40,000 songs and winning scores of accolades including the coveted Padma Shri(1975), Padma Bhushan(2002) honours and seven national awards for the best playback singer, he is still enchanting music lovers the world over. He is the only singer who has been accorded the title Asthana Gayakan (Official singer) of Kerala State.

National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer a record seven times by the Government of India.

Kerala State Film Awards a record twenty four times for the best Playback singer by the Government of Kerala.

Tamil Nadu State Film Awards eight times for the best Playback singer by the Government of Tamil Nadu.

Andhra Pradesh State Film Awards six times for the best Playback singer by the Government of Andra Pradesh.

Karnataka State Film Awards Five Times for the best Playback singer by the Government of Karnataka.

West Bengal State Film Awards One time for the best Playback singer by the Government of West Bengal.

Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1992)

D. Phil by Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu (1989)

D. Litt by Kerala University, Kerala (2003)

D. Litt by Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala (2009)

Swaralaya - Eenam Awards 2010 - Decade’s Best Talent in Malayalam Music