The list compiled by global cult magazine Rolling Stone featured the biggest names on the planet. There is no denying the impact Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan who was dubbed 'Singing Buddha' in Tokyo has had on the globe. Mesmerising audiences and fearless when it came to trying new genres, he was ahead of his time and his music stands free of the ravages of time.
It's no surprise then to see him make an appearance in such a list at number 91, making him one of the top 100 singers of all time.
The feature about him in the magazine said:
Watching archival performances of the late Pakistani vocal master Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan — an icon in the realm of Qawwali, a type of Sufi devotional song, whose family’s musical legacy stretched back hundreds of years — it’s easy to lose track of time, and to hear how his music easily reached global audiences in the Eighties when he began performing abroad and recording for Peter Gabriel’s Real World label. His many famous fans included Madonna, Eddie Vedder (who duetted with him on the Dead Man Walking soundtrack), and Jeff Buckley (who called the singer “my Elvis” and studied Urdu in order to properly cover him). “When I sing, I sing with the depth of my heart,” Khan told an interviewer in 1996, the year before his death at age 48. —H.S.
It's no surprise then to see him make an appearance in such a list at number 91, making him one of the top 100 singers of all time.
The feature about him in the magazine said:
Watching archival performances of the late Pakistani vocal master Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan — an icon in the realm of Qawwali, a type of Sufi devotional song, whose family’s musical legacy stretched back hundreds of years — it’s easy to lose track of time, and to hear how his music easily reached global audiences in the Eighties when he began performing abroad and recording for Peter Gabriel’s Real World label. His many famous fans included Madonna, Eddie Vedder (who duetted with him on the Dead Man Walking soundtrack), and Jeff Buckley (who called the singer “my Elvis” and studied Urdu in order to properly cover him). “When I sing, I sing with the depth of my heart,” Khan told an interviewer in 1996, the year before his death at age 48. —H.S.