Early Life Joshi was born into a Kannada Madhwa Brahmin family in the town of Rona, now in the Gadag district of northern Karnataka. Bhimsen was the eldest in a family of 16 siblings. Bhimsen lost his mother when he was young, and his step mother then raised him. His parents lived initially with his grandfather as tenants of a Kulkarni household, but then moved to Gadag District. His father, Gururaj Joshi, was a school teacher and wanted his son to attain sound education and qualify as a doctor or an engineer. As a child, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi's craving for music was evident to his family as he managed to lay his hands on a 'tanpura' used by his 'Kirtankar' grandfather, which had been kept away from his gaze at home. Music had such a magnetic pull over him that a 'bhajan singing' procession or just 'azaan' from a nearby mosque was said to draw him out of house. Search For Guru A conservative schoolmaster's son, Bhimsen Joshi had a passion for music even from his early childhood. The little boy deeply moved by a recording of Abdul Karim Khan, the founder father of the 'kirana gharana', was later destined to become an accomplished jewel of the gharana. He left home in 1932 and was on the move for the next two years in search of a guru. He travelled to Bijapur, Pune, Gwalior where he tutored under Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan, the well-known sarodiya and father of Ustad Amjad Ali Khan,then to Calcutta, Punjab and it was when he was in Gwalior his father traced him and bought him back to home sending him to Sawai Gandharva for training. SAWAI GANDHARVA He found the apt teacher for him very close to his house. Under the tutelage of Savai Gandharva khyal was principally taught in the Guru Shishya (master-disciple) tradition. Bhimsen's guru Sawai Gandharva was the chief disciple of Abdul Karim Khan, who along with his cousin Abdul Wahid Khan was the founder of the Kirana Gharana school of Hindustani music. he learnt many ragas and perfected his tone, pitch and the best of Kirana gharana. Bhimsen began to live at his guru's house and was taught nothing for the first 18 months, primarily because his student's voice was breaking and to test his sincerity. Bhimsen stayed with his teacher till 1940 and learnt raga Todi, Multani and Pooriya. Bhimsen was put into rigorous training under Sawai Gandharva and Pandit Bhimsen Joshi enriched the Kirana gharana by adding his own distinctive style and adapting characteristics from other gharanas to create a unique vocal idiom. He has improvised and combined ragas to create new ragas like the Kalashri and LalitBhatiyar. Career Bhimsen Joshi first performed live at the age 19. His debut album, containing a few devotional songs in Kannada and Hindi, was released when he was 20. His meeting with vocalist Begum Akhtar fetched him a job as a staff artiste at Lucknow radio station where he became friends with shehnai player Ustad Bismillah Khan. Pandit Bhimsen Joshi was an exponent of khayal style and rendered majestic thumris and bhajans. He gave his first public concert in Pune in January 1946 to mark the shashtyabdipoorti (60th birthday) of his guru Sawai Gandharva. Some of the famous numbers sung by Bhimsen Joshi include 'Piya milan ki aas', 'Jo bhaje hari ko sada', and 'Mile sur mera tumhara'.His guru and the audience appreciated the performance. Bhimsen started as a recording artiste in 1944 with HMV when the company released two Hindi and two devotional songs in Kannada and also as a playback singer. He recorded prolifically for the company and in 1984 became the first Hindustani vocalist to win a platinum disc. Bhimsen Joshi has the ability to make his voice do almost anything he wants, be it a small murki, a delicate gamaka, a rapid tan, a fast flight across octaves, a controlled modulation of the voice, or simply holding a note steady for a song. His command and control over his voice seems to be complete and the dazzling display of vocal technique is unprecedented. Very characteristic to Bhimsen Joshi are his animated gestures and facial contortions which provide imagery to the abstraction of the raga in the mind of the listener. He believes that the poetic content of the lyrics are as important as the notes comprising the raga. Bhimsen Joshi has contributed immensely to the field of Indian music. His national and international status has made classical music popular with the uninitiated. He is one of the few Hindustani classical singers listened to and appreciated by Carnatic music aficionados as well. He has created a number of ragas and raginis and also composed music for musical plays. Pandit Bhimsen Joshi has come a long way, and was honoured with the Padma Shri by the Government of India and received the Sangeet Natak Academy Award in 1975. Repertoire Bhimsen was singled out -- rather unjustly -- for his limited repertoire of raga-s, and their repeated rendition at concerts and on commercial recordings. He built up a formidable edifice of musicianship with his renditions of about 20 ragas, mainly -- Darbari, Puriya Kalyan, Miya-ki- Todi, Lalit, Shuddha Kalyan, Miya-ki-Malhar, Puriya, Multani, Marwa, Malkauns, Maru Bihag, Abhogi, Gaur Sarang, Brindabani Sarang, and Jaijaiwanti.This pattern is not unique to Bhimsen Joshi, and is also understandable. There are, of course, a few gharana-s which pride themselves in performing a wide range of raga-s. A majority of them, however, have a marked preference for a select few ragas which enable them to express their stylistic inclinations most effectively. Further, each musician has learnt some raga-s most intensively, practiced most rigorously, and found most suited to his temperament. He excels in these ragas, and audiences never tire of his renderings of them because he is able to present them with freshness and impact each time. But, because the finest amongst musicians have internalized the concept of raga-ness, they are able to easily master new raga-s, and also create new melodic entities of their own.Bhimsen was candid about the limitations of his repertoire, without being apologetic. But, like many others, he responded to public demand and the goading of recording companies, by recording an entire series of "Unsung Ragas", many of which are rare, and even created new ragas like Kalashri ( a blend of Kalavati and Rageshri) and Lalit-Bhatiyar (combining Lalit with Bhatiyar). Musicianship No other 20th century vocalist, with the exception of Ustad Faiyyaz Khan and Ustad Bade Gulam Ali Khan, has held his audiences in abject surrender like Bhimsen Joshi did. Panditji’s unique bonding with audiences was attributed to several factors. The most significant facet of his musical personality was his voice with all its qualities – precision, richness, power, range, malleability and agility – and the emotional involvement he invested in every rendition. Veteran connoisseurs have also noted that, over the years, there was no change in the youthfulness and freshness of his voice, and delivery. Another important aspect was his wide repertoire of genres, and his equal command over all departments of musicianship in each of them. The third substantial facet was his amazing consistency as a performer. Amongst vocalists, his consistency rating has been matched, in the last 60 years, only by Ustad Bade Gulam Ali Khan. Enhancing the influence of these qualities was his ability to astutely judge profiles of audiences, select the repertoire most suited to them, and to deliver it with gripping impact. Bhimsen Joshi’s star started rising while the titans of the pre-independence era – Kesarbai Kerkar, Omkarnath Thakur, and Krishnarao Pandit -- were still active. He built his career sharing the stage with formidable contemporaries -- Gangubai Hangal, Hirabai Barodekar, and Roshanara Begum of his own gharana, Ustad Ameer Khan of Indore/Bhindi Bazaar, Ustad Bade Gulam Ali Khan of Patiala, and D V Paluskar of Gwalior.The stature and popularity of Joshi, a classicist, remained unaffected by the later rise of the hugely influential romanticists – Kumar Gandharva, Jasraj and Kishori Amonkar.His musicianship shone brightly amidst such a galaxy because his vocalism could outgrow the shadows of orthodox Kairana without sacrificing its essentials, and evolve into an original modern style with a broad-spectrum appeal. During his long career, Bhimsen Joshi trained a few competent students. If they do not feature in the "Who’s Who" of the next generation, his is not an isolated case. With the demise of aristocratic patronage after independence, music became an extremely stressful and nomadic profession, which left thriving musicians with neither the time, nor the temperament, for being effective Gurus. However, thanks to the ample availability of his recordings, Bhimsen Joshi’s influence pervades all of male vocalism. In fact, today, it is difficult to find a male singer below 50, who has not been visibly influenced by him. Hindustani Classical Singer Bhimsen is a versatile singer; he is an expert in khayal singing but he is also adept in the presentation of thumris, songs from plays, or devotional compositions. His lilting thumris (Jadu bhareli, Piya ke milan ki aas or Babul mora) and his innumerable popular Abhangs composed by the saints of Maharashtra are instances in point. Bhimsen Joshi's music was hailed by both the critics and the masses. Joshi occasionally employed the use of sargam and tihaais, and often sang traditional compositions of the Kirana gharana. His music often injected surprising and sudden turns of phrase, for example through the unexpected use of boltaans. Over the years, his repertoire tended to favor a relatively small number of complex and serious ragas; however, he remained one of the most prolific exponents of Hindustani classical music.