KJ Yesudas Honoured With Padma Vibhushan!

KJ Yesudas, the Gana Gandharvan of Indian cinema has been honoured with Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award of India. Yesudas is the only Malayali singer who received this award so far.

The Padma awards 2017 has been announced as the part of the Republic Day celebrations. Veteran Malayalam poet Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri and Hockey team captain VJ Sreejesh are some of the Keralites who received the Padma awards this year.

It is the third Padma award for KJ Yesudas, who won Padma Shri in 1975 and Padma Bhushan in 2002. The veteran singer has also made records by receiving 43 Kerala State Film Awards and 7 National Film Awards, so far.

Yesudas was born as the eldest son of Augustine Joseph and Elizabeth Joseph, on January 10th, 1940. He started his career as a playback singer at the age of 22, by singing for the Malayalam movie, Kaalpaadukal.

The singer has recorded over 50,000 songs in a career span of about 56 years, in most of the Indian languages, including Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, Assamese, Konkani, Kashmiri, etc. His son Vijay Yesudas is also a renowned playback singer.