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 various cities in the U.S.S.R. In 1970 he was nominated to head the Sangeetha Nataka Academy of Kerala, he was the youngest person ever to occupy the office. In 1971, Yesudas with his musical troupe travelled around Kerala to raise funds for the Indian Prime Minister's National Defense Fund during the Indo-Pakistani War. He also became Senate member in the International Parliament for Safety and Peace, an organization incorporated in the USA.
On November 14, 1999, Yesudas was presented an honorary award by UNESCO 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. He also dons the role of cultural ambassador of India through his numerable performances abroad, promoting Indian Music.Yesudas has, till date, performed in almost all the major cities of the world.
He is the only one singer who has the title Asthana Gayakan (Official singer) of Kerala State.He was awarded the Padmashree (1973) and Padma Bhushan (2002) by the President of India