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 48000 songs in films, albums, TV and Radio which includes solos, duets, chorus and title tracks in 20 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.

S.Janaki's contribution to the Indian music industry in a career spanning six decades gained her honorific titles such as the "Queen of Melody", "Nightingale of India", and "Expression Queen of Indian music"..She began her singing career with the Tamil film ''Vidhiyin Vilayattu'' (1957) and recorded in six languages in the same year. Her career has spanned over six decades until 2016, when she announced self-retirement from singing for films and stage appearances. However, upon insistence from the film fraternity, she made a comeback by singing a song for the Tamil film ''Pannaadi'' in 2018. She has won 4 National Film Awards and 33 different State Film Awards. She is a recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of Mysore, the Kalaimamani award from Tamil Nadu State Government and Karnataka Rajyotsava award from Government of Karnataka. In 2013, she refused to accept Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award of the Government of India and said that she deserves Bharat Ratna the highest civilian award of the Government of India for her contributions to music. She pointed that it is too little and had come "too late" and that South Indian artists were not given their due recognition. Provided by Wikipedia