Gauhar Jaan

Gauhar Jaan (born Angelina Yeoward; 26 June 1873 – 17 January 1930) was an Indian singer and dancer from Kolkata. Popularly known as the gramophone girl, she was India's first celebrity singer. She was one of the first preferences for audio houses to record music on the then-new 78 rpm record in India .

Early life Gauhar Jaan was born as Eleen Angelina Yeoward on 26 June 1873 in Azamgarh, to a family of Armenian descent. Her father, Robert William Yeoward, worked as an engineer in a dry ice factory, and married her mother, Adeline Victoria Hemmings, in 1872. Victoria herself, was the daughter of Hardy Hemmings, a British soldier and a local Hindu woman named Rukmini in Allahabad and had a sister Vela. Vicky as she was called had been trained in music and dance. Gauhar Jan started performing in Calcutta in 1896 and was called the 'first dancing girl' in her records. She met Gujarati Parsi theatre artist Amrit Keshav Nayak around 1904–1905 and had a brief relationship with him before his sudden death in 1907. He helped her recover from trauma following death of her mother.

Gauhar Jaan first visited Madras in 1910, for a concert in the Victoria Public Hall, and soon her Hindustani and Urdu songs were published in a Tamil music book. In December 1911, she was famously invited to perform at the coronation of King George V at Delhi Durbar, where she sang a duet, Ye Hai Tajposhi Ka Jalsa, Mubarak Ho Mubarak Ho, with Jankibai of Allahabad.

In her lifetime, she recorded more than 600 songs from 1902 to 1920, in more than ten languages, including Bengali, Hindustani, Gujarati, Tamil, Marathi, Arabic, Persian, Pushto, French, and English. She would round off her performances for a record by announcing 'My name is Gohar Jan'.

She popularised light Hindustani classical music with her thumri, dadra, kajri, chaiti, bhajan, tarana renditions, and also mastered the technique of condensing performing the elaborate melody Hindustani classical style to just three and a half minutes for a record. Her most famous song are, thumri sung in Bhairavi is Mora nahak laye gavanava, jabse gaye mori sud huna, Ras Ke Bhare Tore Nain, Mere dard-e-jigar and Bhajans like, Radhey Krishna Bol Mukhse. Google commented: "Gauhar Jaan, who emerged on the scene at the turn of the 20th century, gained popularity through her singing and dancing, and would go on to define the future of Indian performance art.". The recording was done in a makeshift recording studio in two large rooms of a hotel in Kolkata. By 1903, her records started appearing in Indian markets and were in great demand.

Restoration and release Saregama (formerly the Gramophone Co. of India Ltd, His Master's Voice), is planning to re-release the milestone recordings of Gauhar Jaan, after retrieving them from Gramophone Company's London archives, and restoring them to their original glory.

Contemporaries There were four singing contemporaries of Gauhar Jaan with first names pronounced the same way as hers and sometimes spelled in English in different ways:

Gauhar Jan of Patiala; Miss Gohar, who was associated with Parsi Theatrical Company in Bombay (Mumbai); Gohar Kayoum Mamajiwala (also known as Miss Gohar), a singer actress who was associated with and mistress of Sardar Chandulal Shah of Ranjit Films (studio), Bombay; and Gohar Bai Karnataka of Bijapur. She is typically associated with Bal Gandharva.