UDIT NARAYAN

UDIT NARAYAN - Playback Singer

Udit Narayan Jha was born on 1 December 1960 in a village called Bhardaha in the Saptari district, Nepal. His father was Hare Krishna Jha and his mother was Bhuwaneshwari Devi.Narayan studied at P.B. School, Rajbiraj, where he passed his S.S. L.C. (class 10) and later obtained his intermediate from Ratna Rajya Laxmi Campus, mostly known as RR campus Kathmandu.

Udit Narayan began his career in Nepal singing for Radio Nepal as a staff artiste for Maithili and Nepali folk songs. He sang many popular Nepali folk, modern songs on Radio Nepal. His first film playback singing was for Nepali film Sindur. It was a comedy song for famous Nepali comedians GopalRaj Mainali (Chankhe) and Basundhara Bhushal (Nakkali). It was a duet song with Sushma Shrestha — now known as Poornima in Hindi films. After eight years in that role, the Indian embassy offered him the chance to study classical music at a prestigious school in Bombay, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, on a music scholarship. He moved to Bombay in 1978.

He got his first break in 1980, when noted music director (composer) Rajesh Roshan asked him to playback for the Hindi film Unees Bees and was given the opportunity to sing with the veteran Mohammed Rafi. He provided playback for a number of films, the most notable being Sannata (1981), Bade Dil Wala (1983) and Tan-Badan (1986). The success story of his career began in 1988 when Anand-Milind gave him the oppportunity to sing all the songs for the successful Bollywood movie Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, earning him a Filmfare Award. The film also brought actor Aamir Khan, actress Juhi Chawla and playback singer Alka Yagnik to stardom. After the success of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, he became one of the leading playback singers in the Indian film industry. He is also hailed as the screen voice of Shahrukh Khan.

Music directors, Anand-Milind first collaborated with Udit with the 1986 film Tan-Badan. They gave him his first breakthrough when he got the chance to sing songs for the hit 1988 film Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak. All the songs for that film were sung by him and Alka Yagnik. Some of their collaborations included hit films like Dil, Beta, Raj Babu, Hero No. 1, Dulhe Raja, Aunty No. 1, Hogi Pyaar Ki Jeet among others.Music directors, Nadeem-Shravan started working with him in the late 80s. They have collabrated for films like Aashiqui, Dilwale, Raja, Raja Hindustani, Jeet, Mohabbat, Sirf Tum, Aa Ab Laut Chalen, Kasoor, Andaaz and few others.

Udit started to work with music directors, Jatin Lalit in 1991 which was also the year when Jatin Lalit started their music career. Since then they have collabrated for hit films like Khiladi, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Jab Pyaar Kisise Hota Hai, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Dil Kya Kare, Albela, Kehtaa Hai Dil Baar Baar, Hum Tum etc.He has worked with music directors like Rahul Dev Burman, Rajesh Roshan, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji, Bappi Lahiri, A. R. Rahman, Yuvan Shankar Raja, Karthik Raja, Anu Malik, Jagjit Singh, Uttam Singh, Raam Laxman, Ilayaraja, Bhupen Hazarika, Shiv-Hari, Ravindra Jain, Madan Mohan, Mohammed Zahur Khayyam, Vishal Bhardwaj, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Himesh Reshammiya, Viju Shah, Vidyasagar, M. M. Keeravani, Mani Sharma, Ismail Darbar, Anand Raj Anand, Aadesh Shrivastava, Arun Paudwal, Pritam Chakraborty, Sajid-Wajid, Dilip Sen-Sameer Sen, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Sohail Sen, Nikhil Vinay, Sandesh Shandilya, Ram Sampath, Rahul Sharma, Daboo Malik, Sukhwinder Singh, Roop Kumar Rathod, Adnan Sami, Sanjeev Darshan, Vishal-Shekhar, G. V. Prakash Kumar, Ajay-Atul and Sachin Jigar.

In a career spanning three decades he has sung many duet songs, most of these have been with Alka Yagnik. They sang their first duet for the 1981 film Sannata when they were both at the beginning of their careers. They both got their breakthrough with the 1988 film Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and since then they have sung hundreds of duet songs together. He has sung many duets with Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Anuradha Paudwal, Sadhana Sargam, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Poorima, Sunidhi Chauhan and Shreya Ghoshal. He has also sung with many male playback singers including Mohammed Rafi, Mahendra Kapoor, Amit Kumar, Kumar Sanu, Abhijeet, Hariharan, Vinod Rathod and Sonu Nigam.

At the same time, he sang in Nepalese movies and acted in two Nepali films Kusume Rumal and Pirati in 1985. He has worked in Nepalese films as well, in particular for composer Shambhujeet Baskota. During his early singing career, he performed songs composed by Shiva Shankar, Natikaji and Gopal Yonjan. In 2004, he released his first private Nepalese album, Upahaar, in which he sang duets with his wife Deepa Jha. At the Hits FM Awards in 2004 he won awards in two major categories for the album: Record of the Year and Album of the Year. Some of Narayan's other private albums are Bhajan Sangam, Bhajan Vatika, I Love You, Dil Deewana, Yeh Dosti, Love is Life, Jhumka de Jhumka, Sona No Ghadulo, Dhuli Ganga, and Ma Tarini.

He was in the panel of judges of Indian Idol 3 with music composer Anu Malik and female playback singer Alisha Chinai on Sony TV.

He was in the panel of judges on Sony TV for Waar Pariwaar, a reality show based on the bringing together of a singing gharana (family of singers). He shared judging duties with fellow playback singer Kumar Sanu and Jatin Pandit of the famous music duo Jatin-Lalit. Indian Idol 3 judge, Saregama many time special gust, X Factor, Jo Jita wo super Star special judges

Narayan has performed in many stage shows in India and abroad and is the recipient of a large number of awards. These include Screen Videocon Award, MTV Best Video Award and Pride of India Gold Award. In 2009, Narayan was considering running as a candidate for the Padma Shri. In 2010, Udit Narayan with Madhushree sang for the English independent film "When Harry Tries to Marry"

Narayan is a resident of Mumbai. He has married twice: to Ranjana Narayan Jha and Deepa Narayan Jha. His second wife, Deepa Narayan, whom he married in 1985, is a singer. The two recorded an album together titled Dil Deewana. They have son, Aditya Narayan, who is a former child actor, singer and television presenter. Aditya Narayan started his singing for child artists in Nepali film with his father before starting his singing career in Hindi movies in the 1990s and also acted in a few films.

He has received various awards and honours like the Padma Shri, India's 4th highest civilian honour, He has received Prabal Gorkha Dakshin Bahu, one of the highest honor given to the civilians traditionally given by the King of Nepal and now by Nepalese President, by the late king Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, Maharashtra Ratna Award from Government of Maharashtra in 2011