Veteran singer Vani Jayaram, who was conferred the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award recently, passed away this afternoon.
Vani Jayaram recently marked 50 years as a professional singer. Over 18 different Indian languages have been graced by her voice.
She has recorded more than 10,000 songs in her career. Vani Jayaram took home the trophy for Best Female Playback Singer at the National Film Awards three times, twice for Telugu films.
Born in Tamil Nadu in 1945, she began her singing career in Bollywood. Her first break came in the Hindi film Guddi (1971). Vani Jayaram has made a tremendous impact on Telugu film music. The Telugu film “Shankarabharanam” was her most famous film.
Her first Telugu film was ‘Abhimanavanthulu’ (1973), but it wasn’t until 1975’s ‘Pooja’ that she became a household name thanks to her performance of “Ennenno Janmala Bandham”.
Vani Jayaram’s star rose after she contributed vocals to the soundtrack of K. Viswanath’s musical film Sankarabharanam (1979), for which she won her second National Film Award. Additionally, she has a national award for her Telugu song “Anathineeyara Hara” (Swathikiranam).
She has worked with a slew of renowned composers like KV Mahadevan, Chakravarthy, Sathyam, Ilayaraja, and MS Vishwanathan.