Jayaram, Vani Puthri

Vani Jayaram was a very prominent and consistent singers of
south film industry. But she is not as famous as she deserves
to be. As an admirer, I would like to write a little about her.

She is a great singer with unique voice and style of singing mesmerized the music lovers for many years. She has sung songs in all the south Indian languages as well as in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarthi, Oriya and many other Indian languages. She was introduced as a playback inger by the famous composer Vasant Dasai. She is very grateful to him and feels
honored to be introduced by him. She considers him as her Godfather.

She is a very versatile singer with a beautiful voice. Her effortless singing of high pitched notes is extremely beautiful. Her rendition of songs for the movie Swathi Kiranam (Telugu) is a concrete example of her versatility in singing carnatic classical, folk, light and melodious songs. She sang with all popular Music Directors of her time. She alos sang for Pt Ravi Sankar for the Hindi movie Meera.

Now she has devoted her time to Ghazals, geeths, bhajans, folk songs. She also writes poems in Tamil and Hindi. She is running an audio recording unit in Chennai. She has worked with Pt. Birju maharaj, the legendary kathak maestro for two cassettes of thumri bhajans. Guru Kelu charan mohopatra played Pakhawaj for her rendition of Git Govind.

She also organizes workshops and seminars for school children to prevent the onslaught of cultural imperialism. She would like to spend time with terminally ill patients and renders songs for them-an effort to ease their pain and wipe away the tears.

She won national awards for Kelviyin Nayagan(Apoorva Raagangal), Dorakuna ituvanti seva(Sankarabhranam), and Aanati Neeyaraa(Swathi kiranam).

Some of my favorites:
All her songs from Swathi Kiranam, Shankarabharanam, Sruti layalu, Pooja, Swarna Kamalam, Seethakoka chiluka, vidhi cheyu vinthalenno(maro charitra) and many more.

References:
1. Wikipedia on Vani_Jayaram
2. Vani Jayaram