Vani Jairam

Vani Jairam (born Kalaivani; 30 November 1945 – 4 February 2023) was an Indian playback singer in Indian cinema.

Post her studies, Vani was employed with the State Bank of India, Madras and later in 1967, she was transferred to the Hyderabad branch.

After her marriage to Jairam in 1969, she moved to Mumbai to set up her family.

Upon her request, she was transferred to the Mumbai branch of her bank.

Knowing her singing skills, Jairam persuaded Vani to get trained in the Hindustani classical music and she enrolled under Ustad Abdul Rehman Khan of the Patiala gharana.

Her rigorous training under him made her quit her bank job and take up music as her profession.

She learned the nuances of various vocal forms such as Thumri, Ghazal and Bhajan under Khan's tutelage and gave her first public concert in 1969.

In the same year, she was introduced to the composer Vasant Desai who was recording a Marathi album with singer Kumar Gandharva.

Upon listening to her voice, Desai chose her to sing the song "Runanubandhacha" for the same album along with Kumar Gandharva.

The album released to much popularity among the Marathi audience and the duet song was well received.

Renowned for her vocal range and easy adaptability to any difficult composition, Vani has often been the choice for several composers across India from the 1970s until the late 1990s.

She has sung in several Indian languages (19 languages excluding Sanskrit), such as Kannada, Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Gujarati, Haryanvi, Assamese, Tulu, Kashmiri, Bhojpuri, Marwari, Urdu, Konkani, Punjabi and Bengali languages.

Vani is the youngest artist to be awarded the "Sangeet Peet Samman".

She won the National Film Awards for Best Female Playback Singer three times and also has won State Government awards from the states of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.

She is fondly referred to as the "Meera of modern India" Vani's career started in 1971 and has spanned over five decades.

She did playback for over one thousand Indian movies recording over 20,000 songs.

In addition, she recorded thousands of devotionals and private albums and also participated in numerous solo concerts in India and abroad.

In 1973, she recorded her first Tamil song for the film Thayum Seiyum under the music direction of S. M. Subbaiah Naidu.

However, the film remains unreleased to date and the song remained in the cans.

Her first released song was a duet romantic song with T. M. Soundararajan for the film Veettukku Vandha Marumagal (1973).

The song "Or Idam Unnidam" was composed by the duo Shankar–Ganesh, with whom, Vani went on to record maximum songs in Tamil cinema.

Immediately after this, she was employed by one of the most successful director-composer duos, K. Balachander and M. S. Viswanathan, for their successful film Sollathaan Ninaikkiren for a solo song "Malarpol Sirippathu Pathinaaru".

Thus began her long association with the top-rated music directors in Tamil cinema.

Her biggest break came through the song "Malligai En Mannan Mayangum" from the film Dheerga Sumangali (1974), again composed by M. S. Viswanathan.

Vani recalled that it was a challenging song and "he (Viswanathan) trusted me with it".

She sang many songs composed by M.S.Viswanathan and Shankar–Ganesh.

She sang with the veteran vocalist Agra Charan Pt. Dinkar Kaikini in the 1979 film Meera.

The music was given by Pt. Ravi Shankar.

While Vani's popularity continued to soar in Bollywood cinema, she started getting offers from the South Indian film industry.

In 2012, she was honored with the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award – South for her achievements in South Indian film music.

In July 2017 she was honored with the Best Female Singer at the NAFA 2017 event at New York City.

She was well versed in various forms of music, including Carnatic, Hindustani, thumri, ghazal and bhajan.

Apart from singing, she was also a songwriter, composer and painter.

Vani was born as Kalaivani in Vellore in Tamil Nadu, in a Brahmin family of classically trained musicians as a fifth daughter in a family of six daughters and three sons.

Her parents Duraisamy Iyer–Padmavathi, trained under Ranga Ramunaja Iyengar, enrolled her in his classes where he taught her a few Muthuswami Dikshitar kritis.

Later she was given a formal Carnatic training under the guidance of Kadalur Srinivas Iyengar, T. R. Balasubramanian and R. S. Mani.

Vani was glued to the Radio Ceylon channel and was attracted to Hindi film songs to the extent that she used to memorize and reproduce the entire orchestration of the songs that used to repeatedly play on the Radio.

At the age of 8, she gave her first public performance at the All India Radio, Madras.

Vani did her schooling at Lady Sivasamy High School, Chennai.

She then graduated from the Queen Mary's College, Chennai.