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Artist
Kattassery Joseph Yesudas (or usually referred to as Dr. K. J. Yesudas or in the alternate, Jesudas, Malayalam: കാട്ടശ്ശേരി ജോസഫ് യേശുദാസ് ) (born January 10, 1940) is an eminent Indian classical musician and leading playback singer for film songs in many Indian languages. Yesudas (the word literally means Follower of Jesus in Malayalam) was born in Fort Kochi, Kerala to Augustine Joseph and Elizabeth Joseph. His father, who was his first guru (teacher), was a well-known Malayalam classical musician and stage actor of his time. He joined the Music Academy in Thrippunithura and won a gold medal for music at a local competition in Fort Kochi at age seven. He later trained under the legendary Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar in Classical Music, and this training, abruptly cut short by the guru's demise in 1974, still stood him in good stead. His soul-stirring voice lends itself well to both Indian classical, devotional and popular songs. Some popular classical songs rendered by Yesudas are Vathapi Ganapathim, Krishna Nee Begane Baaro , 'Yentha Nedu Wo', 'Kshira Saagara'. In playback singing Yesudas, a talent discovered by Salil Chowdhury and nurtured by Ravindra Jain, has sung more than 40,000 songs for many languages including Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam, Gujarati, Oriya, Marathi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tulu, Russian, Arabic, Latin and English through his long career. In 1965, he was invited by the Soviet Union government to perform at music concerts in vario