S. Janaki

Sistla Janaki (born 23 April 1938) is an Indian playback singer and occasional music composer from Andhra Pradesh. She is widely referred to as "Janaki Amma" and "Nightingale of South India". She is one of the best-known playback singers in India. She has recorded over 85,000 songs in films, albums, TV and Radio which includes solos, duets, chorus and title tracks in 17 languages including Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Sanskrit, Odia, Tulu, Urdu, Punjabi, Badaga, Bengali, Konkani and also in foreign languages such as English, Japanese, German and Sinhala; the highest number of songs in her career were in Kannada followed by Malayalam. Started in 1957 with the Tamil film Vidhiyin Vilayattu, her career has spanned over six decades. She is referred to as Gaana Kogile in Karnataka, Gaana Kokila in Telugu States and Isaikkuyil in Tamil Nadu. Widely acclaimed as one of the most versatile singers, her association with singer S. P. Balasubrahmanyam and composer Ilaiyaraaja is most talked about. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s her duets with P. B. Srinivas, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, K. J. Yesudas, P. Jayachandran and Dr. Rajkumar topped the charts across all the South Indian languages. She has sung in almost all the genres and has performed live on stage in more than 5000 concerts across the globe. She is the only singer to have sung 100 songs in four South Indian languages (Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil and Kannada) in the first year of her career. In October 2016, Janaki announced her retirement from singing for films and stage appearances. However, upon insistence from the film fraternity, she made a comeback for the Tamil film Pannadi in 2018.