29th death anniversary of Ahmed Rushdi today

Dunya News

The 29th death anniversary of versatile playback singer Ahmed Rushdi is being observed today.

Ahmed Rushdi was a versatile playback singer who worked in film music and was an important contributor to the golden age of Pakistani film music.Rushdi is acclaimed as one of the greatest singers ever lived in south Asia. He is considered to be one of the most versatile vocalists of the subcontinent and was capable of singing variety of songs. He is also considered to be the first regular pop singer of south Asia and credited as having sung the first-ever South Asian pop song‚ Ko-Ko-Ko-reena.In 1954‚ Rushdi recorded the official National anthem of Pakistan with several other singers. He recorded the highest number of film songs in the history of Pakistani cinema in Urdu‚ English‚ Punjabi‚ Bengali‚ Sindhi and Gujarati languages.He suffered from poor health during the latter part of his life and died of a heart attack on April 11 1983 at the age of 48‚ after recording approximately five thousand film songs for 583 released films.In 2003‚ 20 years after his death‚ Ahmed Rushdi was awarded the Sitara-e-Imtiaz while a street in Gulshan-e-Iqbal‚ Karachi‚ was also named as Ahmed Rushdi Road.