S. Janaki Biography 
S. Janaki is an Indian playback singer who is noted for her voice modulation. She has sung more than 20,000 songs in various languages like Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi. She was offered Padma Bhushan Award by the Government of India in 2013 but she refused to accept it as it came too late at her age of 74.
Janaki was born on 23rd April 1938 in Pallapatla in Repalle village in Guntur. Her father’s name is Sishtla Sreeramamurthy. He was a teacher and an Ayurvedic doctor. She was interested in music from her age of three and learnt music from Sree Paidiswamy and Varanasi Balaramayya.
She married V. Ramprasad and has a son named Murali Krishna. She started to sing for movies at her age of 19. She came to Chennai and joined AVM Studios as a singer. Then she sang many duet songs with P B Srinivas, A M Rajah, Ghantasala and T M Soundarrajan. She became a famous singer in 1970s.
She has also written many songs for Tamil and Telugu albums. She is good in both languages and has sung in many languages including Sinhalese, Oriya, Sanskrit, Konkani, Tulu, Saurashtra, Baduga, Japanese, English and German.
She is very religious and is a devotee of Lord Krishna and Shirdi Sai Baba. She has worked with veteran singers including Malaysia Vasudevan, K J Yesudas, Jayachandran, Mano, Arunmozhi, SP Balasubramanyam, etc. and with music directors including Deva, Vandemataram Srinivas, Yuvan Shankar Raja, A R Rahman, etc.
Some of the films for which she has sung songs include Padaharella Vayasu, Aakali Rajyam, Nireekshana, Saagara Sangamam, Challenge, Abhilasha, Swathi Muthyam, Abhinandana, Nirnayam, Killer, Alapana, Channarayudu, Anthapuram, etc.
Published: N/A
Updated: February 01, 2013
