Kattassery Joseph Yesudas (born 10 January 1940) credited and also known as K. J. Yesudas or simply Yesudas or Jesudas is an Indian playback singer and musician who sings Indian classical, devotional and film songs. Yesudas has recorded more than 50,000 songs in various Indian languages, including Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Kannada, Bengali, Odia, Marathi as well as Arabic, English, Latin, and Russian, in a career spanning six decades. He is mostly known for his celestial voice which is why he is often referred to as "Gaanagandharvan" ( The Celestial Singer). He is a highly regarded singer in South India along with S. P. Balasubrahmanyam. He has also composed a number of Malayalam film songs during the 1970s and 1980s.