Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi (4 February 1922 – 24 January 2011) was an Indian vocalist from Karnataka in the Hindustani classical tradition. He is known for the khayal form of singing, as well as for his popular renditions of devotional music (bhajans and abhangs).
In 1998, he was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, the highest honour conferred by Sangeet Natak Akademi, India’s National Academy for Music, Dance and Drama. Subsequently, he received the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour, in 2009.
Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi was born in a town called Ron, in the Gadag district of Karnataka on 4 February 1922 to Gururaj Joshi (who had authored a Kannada-English dictionary) and Godavaribai, a home-maker. Bhimsen was the eldest among 16 siblings. He lost his mother at a young age and was raised by his stepmother.
As a child, Bhimsen was fascinated with music and musical instruments like the harmonium and tanpura and would often follow processions accompanied by music bands. This exercise often tired him and he would curl up somewhere and sleep, forcing his parents to go to the police after efforts to trace him failed. Fed up, his father Gururajacharya Joshi came up with the solution, writing ” ಜೋಷಿ ಮಾಸ್ತರರ ಮಗ ” (son of teacher Joshi) on Bhimsen’s shirts. This worked and those who found the boy sleeping would safely deposit him back to his house.
A classicist by training, and temperament, Bhimsen Joshi was renowned for having evolved an approach that sought to achieve a balance between what may be termed as “traditional values and mass-culture tastes” and as such he went on to have supposedly the largest commercially recorded repertoire in Hindustani vocal music. Pt. Joshi’s iconic status in the music world has earned him a whole generation of suni shagirds who by merely listening to him have picked up his style and not through any formal tutelage. His greatest endeavour in perpetuating his legacy could be the Sawai Gandharva Festival held at Pune annually since the year 1953 which seeks to promote a certain music culture.
Madhav Gudi, Narayan Deshpande, Shrikant Deshpande,Anand Bhate and others are some of his more well-known disciples.
Awards and recognitions
1972 – Padma Shree
1976 – Sangeet Natak Akademi Award
1985 – Padma Bhushan
1985 – National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer
1986 – “First platinum disc”
1999 – Padma Vibhushan
2000 – “Aditya Vikram Birla Kalashikhar Puraskar”
2002 – Maharashtra Bhushan
2003 – “Swathi Sangeetha Puraskaram” by Government of Kerala
2005 – Karnataka Ratna by Government of Karnataka
2008 – Bharat Ratna
2008 – “Swami Haridas Award”
2009 – “Lifetime achievement award” by Delhi government
2010 – “S V Narayanaswamy Rao National Award” by Rama Seva Mandali, Bangalore
(Ref :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhimsen_Joshi & Rediff Blogs)