Singh Is King, Jagjit Singh - The Ghazal King & More Options

[swarapriya]

Jagjit Singh - The Ghazal King

Jagjit Singh. He was a true legend in his own time. In a span of nearly 35 years, by several estimations, he released 80 plus discs. But during the same time, along with his singing wife Chitra (see the attached pictures below), he released nearly 400 albums. These included, apart from the individual albums, various collections of songs from his released albums. This number is truly an astonishing achievement.

Jagjit Singh, though popularly known for his ghazals, also had numerous devotional albums to his credit. He also was active in many films. He was occasionally participated in composing music for TV shows. He sang in many languages, but mostly in Hindi and his mother tongue, Punjabi.

He was decorated with innumerable awards. Prominent of these include Padma Bhushan, Sahitya Academy Award, Sangeet Natak Academy Award, Sahitya Kala Academy Award, and host of others.

I was encouraged by several members of this Forum to start a thread on Jagjitji. Finally I decided to take the plunge.

Jagjitji, who passed away in 2011 at the age of 70, left us with a legacy of overwhelming song contributions. Singhji was affectionately known as the Ghazal King. Because he lives through his work in our hearts forever, Singhji is still the King.

I will start this thread with Singhji’s discography. I split this into various parts, sorted alphabetically. Each part of the discography lists 20 albums. I will upload these parts below.

I will follow up this with a devotional album of Jagjitji.

Next, the discography…

[swarapriya]

Birha Da Sultan - A Punjabi Album

Shiv Kumar Batalvi who died at the tender age of 36 in 1973 was a noted Punjabi romantic poet. His songs touched many people’s hearts as they delved into pangs of pathos, heightened passions, agony of separation, and ecstasy of fulfillment. In 1967 he was honored with the Sahitya Akademi Award for his popular verse play that became an instant epic. Thus at 21, he became the youngest recipient of the coveted award. The play was based on an ancient legend of Puran Bhagat. That work “Loona”, published in 1965 when he was 19, is now considered a modern masterpiece of Punjabi literature.

It is only appropriate that Jagjitji chose Batalvi’s work for his first Punjabi album. The songs that created a new genre in Punjabi literature have been given to life, appropriately, in the vibrant and unique modernistic approach of Jagjitji and Chitraji. I am uploading these 10 beautiful songs written by Batalvi in two back-to-back posts. Here is the first set of these songs…