🎵🎶 Considered as the Nightingale among singers, Smt. Sistla Janaki Garu (~Janaki Amma) is the best-known multilingual playback singers the world has ever seen! She has won four National Film Awards and 33 different State Film Awards (including ~10 Nandi Awards). With over 48,000 songs in over 20 languages she is the only pan-Indian singer that i know of. i feel happy that i grew up listening to her songs, but i feel a little sad that she wasn't given her due by fellow Indians from the north nor a timely recognition by the GoI. 🙏🤗
🤔 It's difficult to pick and rate her songs one over the other. However, mention must be made about two songs which really stand out in her 65 years of her playback singing career! 👍🙏
🎵🎶 "Singara Velane Deva" from the Tamil film Konjum Salangai (Telugu version: నీ లీల పాడెద దేవా... from మురిపించే మువ్వలు, Enticing Anklets, 1962). The story goes that Music Director Subburayulu Munuswami Subbaiah Naidu fondly known as "Sangeetayya" offered the song to Late P. Leela Garu (~another singing great). Noting what the song required, P. Leela selflessly recommended S. Janaki's name for this song – believing that only S. Janaki would be able to pull it off and do full justice to the song. To this day, S. Janaki Garu remembers Leela Garu's 'big heart' with a loving gratitude. 🙏
🎵🎶 Janaki Garu however considers "Shiva Shiva Ennada Naaligeyeke" from the Kannada film Hemavathi (1977) as the toughest song of her singing career. What is unusual about this experimental song is that one line is presented in Thodi Ragam, the other line is presented in Aabhogi Ragam and it continues to alternate for the entire song. Composed by another music legend L. Vaidyanathan, Janaki Garu transitions from one raga to the other back and forth effortlessly... not humanly possible in a single take! But S. Janaki is a different breed – truly a personification of Maa Saraswathi. 🙏 And for this song alone, she deserves both the Dada Saheb Phalke and the Bharat Ratna Awards! 🙏
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