Sudhir Phadke Biography 
Sudhir Phadke was an accomplished Marathi singer and composer from Kolhapur, Maharashtra. He is regarded as an icon of the Marathi film industry and Marathi Sugam Sangeet (light music) for 5 decades. He was fondly called Babuji. Apart from Marathi, he has also composed a few Hindi songs. Phadke has 111 films to his credit as a music director, 21 of which are in Hindi. He has worked with both Mangeshkar sisters in Hindi as well as Marathi.
Sudhir was married to his fellow singer Lalita Deulkar. Noted film composer and singer, Shridhar Phadke is their son. Jyoti kalash chalke from the movie, Bhabhi ki Chudiyan sung by Lata Mangeshkar is one of the most popular film songs of Phadke up to date. In 1963, he won National award for best regional movie in Marathi for the film, Ha Majha Marg Ekla. In 1991, he received Sangeet Natak Academic Award and he was presented with Sahyadri Swara Ratna Puraskar in 2002 by DD Sahyadri. He composed the song "Pehli Tarikh" for AIR that is telecasted on the first day of every month on AIR till now. Maratha Sphurti Geet the regimental song of Maratha Light Infantry is another popular composition.
Sudhir Phadke was born in Kolhapur on 25 July 1919. His real name was Ram Phadke, and he changed while composing songs for HMV. He learnt music from Vamanrao Padhye of Kolhapur. He started recording songs with HMV in the year 1941 and 5 years later, he joined Prabhat Film Company as a music director. Geet Ramayana, is still regarded as one among the best works of Sudhir, where he composed 56 songs written by G. D. Madgulkar. It is summary of Indian epic of Ramayana in chronological sequence and its first song was telecasted on AIR on Sunday the April 1, on Raam Navami day. From 1 April 1955 for 56 weeks, every Sunday a new song of Geet Ramayana was broadcasted and this program was very popular in that time. It has been translated in 9 Indian languages later.
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Updated: February 25, 2014
