Friday, August 23, 2013
NUSRAT FATEH ALI KHAN ( October 1948 – 16
August 1997), a world renowned Pakistani musician, was primarily a singer
of Qawwali, the devotional music of the Sufis. Considered one of the
greatest singers ever recorded, he possessed an extraordinary range of vocal
abilities and could perform at a high level of intensity for several
hours. Extending the 600-year old Qawwali tradition of his family, Khan is widely
credited with introducing Qawwali music to international audiences. He is
popularly known as "Shahenshah-e-Qawwali", meaning "The King of
Kings of Qawwali".
Born in Faisalabad, Pakistan, Khan had his first public
performance at age of 16, at his father's chelum. He became the head of
the family qawwali party in 1971. He was signed by Oriental Star Agencies,
Birmingham, England, in the early 1980s. Khan went on to release movie scores
and albums in Europe, India, Japan, Pakistan, and the U.S.A. He engaged in
collaborations and experiments with Western artists, becoming a
well-known world music artist. He toured extensively, performing in
over 40 countries.
Khan was born on 13 October 1948 in the city of Faisalabad. He was
the fifth child and first son of Fateh Ali Khan, a musicologist,
vocalist, instrumentalist, and Qawwal. Khan's family, which included four
older sisters and a younger brother, Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan, grew up in
central Faisalabad. Initially, his father did not want Khan to follow the
family's vocation. He had his heart set on Khan choosing a much more
respectable career path and becoming a doctor, because he felt Qawwali artists
had low social status. However, Khan showed such an aptitude for, and interest
in, Qawwali that his father finally relented. Khan began by learning to
play tabla alongside his father before progressing to learn Raag
Vidya and Bol Bandish. He then went on to learn to sing
within the classical framework of khayal. Khan's training with his father
was cut short when his father died in 1964, leaving Khan's paternal
uncles, Mubarak Ali Khan and Salamat Ali Khan, to complete his
training. His first performance was at a traditional graveside ceremony for his
father, known as chehlum, which took place forty days after his father's
death.
In 1971, after the death of Mubarak Ali Khan, Khan became the
official leader of the family Qawwali party and the party became known as Nusrat
Fateh Ali Khan, Mujahid Mubarak Ali Khan & Party. Khan's first public
performance as the leader of the Qawwali party was at a studio recording
broadcast as part of an annual music festival organised by Radio Pakistan,
known as Jashn-e-Baharan. Khan sang mainly in Urdu and Punjabi and
occasionally in Persian, Braj Bhasha and Hindi. His first
major hit in Pakistan was the song Haq Ali Ali, which was performed
in a traditional style and with traditional instrumentation. The song featured
restrained use of Khan's sargam improvisations.
In 1979, Khan married his first cousin, Naheed (the daughter of
Fateh Ali Khan's brother, Salamat Ali Khan); they had one daughter,
Nida.
Early in his career, Khan was signed up by Oriental Star Agencies
in the U.K. to their Star Cassette Label. OSA sponsored regular concert tours
by Khan to the U.K. from the early '80s onwards, and released much of this live
material on cassette, CD, videotape and DVD.
In the summer of 1985, Khan performed at the World of Music,
Arts and Dance (WOMAD) festival in London.He performed in Paris in 1985
and 1988. He first visited Japan in 1987, at the invitation of the Japan
Foundation. He also performed at the 5th Asian Traditional Performing Art
Festival in Japan.
In the 1992–93 academic year, Khan was a Visiting Artist in
the Ethnomusicology department at the University of Washington, Seattle,
Washington, United States.
Khan
teamed with Peter Gabriel on the soundtrack to The Last
Temptation of Christ in 1985, with Canadian musician Michael
Brookon the albums Mustt Mustt (1990) and Night Song (1996), and with Pearl
Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder in 1995 on two songs for the
soundtrack to Dead Man Walking. One of these songs ("The Long
Road") was re-used on the soundtrack for Eat Pray Love in
2010. Khan also contributed to the soundtrack of Natural Born Killers.
He composed the music for the 1994 film Bandit Queen in
collaboration with Roger White.
Peter Gabriel's Real World label later released five
albums of Khan's traditional Qawwali, together with some of his experimental
work which included the albums Mustt Mustt and Star
Rise. Khan provided vocals for The Prayer Cycle, which was put
together by Jonathan Elias, but died before the vocals could be
completed. Alanis Morissette was brought in to sing with his
unfinished vocals. Khan also collabrated with Michael Brook to create music for
the song "Sweet Pain" used in the movie Any Given Sunday.
He also performed traditional Qawwali before international audiences at several
WOMAD festivals and the single "Dam Mast Qalandar" was remixed
by electronic trip hop group Massive Attack in 1998.
His album Intoxicated Spirit was nominated for a
Grammy award in 1997 for best traditional folk album. Same year his album Night
Song was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album,
but lost out to The Chieftains' album Santiago.
Khan contributed songs to, and performed in, several Pakistani
films. Shortly before his death, he recorded a song each for two Bollywood films, Aur
Pyaar Ho Gaya (in which he also sang the song onscreen) and Kachche
Dhaage. He sang a song for the film Dhadkan. He also sang
"Saya bhi saath jab chhod jaye" for Sunny Deol's movie Dillagi.
The song was released in 1999, two years after Khan's death.
Khan contributed the song "Gurus of Peace" to the
album Vande Mataram, composed by A. R. Rahman, and released to
celebrate the 50th anniversary of India's independence. Rahman, who was a big
fan of Khan could not do further songs with him. As a tribute, Rahman later
released an album titled Gurus of Peace, which featured "Allah
Hoo" by Khan. Rahman's 2007 song "Tere Bina" was also done as a
tribute to Khan.
After his death, the song "Solemn Prayer", on which Khan
provided vocals, was used on the Peter Gabriel song "Signal to Noise"
(on the album Up), and on the soundtrack to the Martin
Scorsese film Gangs of New York.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records,
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan holds the world record for the largest recorded output by
a Qawwali artist—a total of 125 albums as of 2001.
Khan was taken ill with kidney and liver failure on 11 August 1997
in London, England, while on the way to Los Angeles USA in order to receive
a kidney transplant. He died of a sudden cardiac arrest at Cromwell
Hospital, London, on Saturday, 16 August 1997, aged 48. His body was
repatriated to Faisalabad, Pakistan, and his funeral was a public affair.
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