Unknown facts about Yesudas on his 73rd birthday!

Updated: Thursday, January 10, 2013, 12:50 [IST]

Born on 10 January 1940, Yesudas is one of the most loved, revered and popular singers in India. He turns 73 today. Yesudas has recorded more than 50,000 songs in languages such as Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati, Oriya, Marathi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tulu, Malay, Russian, Arabic, Latin and English during a career spanning five decades.

On his birthday, Oneindia brings you some rare and unknown facts about the veteran singer....

1) Producer Raman Nambiyath introduced Yesudas as a playback singer in the film Kaalpaadukal on Nov 14, 1961.

2) Yesudas made his debut as music director in the Malayalam movie, Azhakulla Seleena (1973).

3) Yesudas is known as Gana Gandharvan for his continuous contributions to music.

4) Yesudas has won National film awards seven times for playback singing, the most by any singer.

Click on the slider below to see rare and unseen pictures of Yesudas and family.

Yesudas

Yesudas is credited with singing the most officially recorded songs by any singer in the world.

Yesudas

Yesudas has won the National Award for the Best Male Playback Singer seven times (the most by any Indian singer) and the State Award for the Best Playback Singer 43 times.

Yesudas

Yesudas was awarded Padma Shri in 1975 and Padma Bhushan in 2002 by the Government of India for his contributions to the arts.

Yesudas

Yesudas is a talent discovered by Salil Chowdhury and nurtured by Ravindra Jain.

Vijay Yesudas And Family

This is a picture of Vijay Yesudas with wife and daughter.

Yesudas

The first song sung by Yesudas is 'Jaathi Bhedam Matha Dwesham' (music: MB Sreenivasan) on 14 Nov 1961.

Yesudas

KJ Yesudas was born at Fort Kochi into a Roman Catholic Latin Rite family to Augustine Joseph and Alicekutty. His father, who was a well-known Malayalam classical musician and stage actor, was his first guru.