Amirbai Karnataki
Amirbai Karnataki came to Bombay from a village in Bijapur district and became, for a few years in the mid-1940s, the most recorded female voice in Hindi film. Kismet (1943) — Dheere Dheere Aa Re Baadal, with Anil Biswas — ran for three years in a Calcutta cinema, and her singing of Vaishnava Jana To was the version Gandhi preferred.
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Life
She was born in 1906 in Bilgi, in what is now Bagalkot district, Karnataka, into a Muslim family of musicians; her sister Gauharbai also sang and acted. She came to Bombay in 1934, acted in a few films, and from the late 1930s was a playback singer for Anil Biswas, Naushad, Husnlal-Bhagatram, Khemchand Prakash and others. Kismet made her famous; Rattan, Shahjehan, Bhakta Surdas and Samadhi followed.
Like the other heavy-voiced singers of the 1940s she lost work rapidly after 1949. She married the actor Himalaywala, later the journalist Badri Kanchwala, and in the 1950s sang in Kannada and other south Indian films and composed for a few. She died in Bijapur in 1965 after a stroke.
The Kismet songs, Vaishnava Jana To, and Gore Gore O Banke Chhore with Shamshad in Samadhi are the recordings most people know.
The voice
Amirbai's voice was deep and resonant with a distinct southern flavour in the vowels, trained in the classical manner and used with great feeling in the slow song. She sang the bhajan and the lament best; Dheere Dheere Aa Re Baadal shows the quiet power of the voice at its best.
Composers
- Anil Biswas
- Naushad
- Husnlal-Bhagatram
- Khemchand Prakash
- C. Ramchandra
- Gyan Dutt
Sang with
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year not stated
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