Amit Kumar

Amit Kumar (born 3 July 1952) is an Indian playback singer, music composer and actor. Kumar launched his own music production company, named Kumar Brothers Music. He has predominantly worked in Bollywood and regional film songs since the 1970s, including 150 Hindi and Bengali compositions by R. D. Burman and Bappi Lahiri. After Burman's death in 1994, citing a lack of quality music composition, Kumar withdrew from playback singing and concentrated on live orchestra shows. In addition to singing in Hindi, has also performed in Bengali, Bhojpuri, Odia, Assamese, Marathi and Konkani. He is the eldest son of singer-actor Kishore Kumar.

Early life

Kumar is the son of singer and actor Kishore Kumar and Bengali singer and actress Ruma Guha Thakurta. Like his father, Amit started singing from an early age and he used to sing at Durga Pooja festivals in Calcutta. At one such function arranged by Bengali actor "Mahanayak" Uttam Kumar, the audience continued requesting encores. While his mother complained that he was singing "filmy" songs, his father decided to bring him to Bombay.

Kishore Kumar had cast Amit as his son in two films that he produced. In the first, Door Gagan Ki Chhaon Mein he sang Aa Chalke Tujhe, Mein Leke Chaloon to his eleven-year-old son. For the second film, Door Ka Raahi, a teenage Amit Kumar sang "Main Ik Panchi Matwaala Re", but it was removed from the final cut of the film.

Singing career

1970s

Kumar sang professionally for the first time, outside his father's composition, at the age of 21 in 1973. The song was "Hosh Mein Hum Kahan", composed by Sapan Jagmohan for the film Darwaza, which was released in 1978.