Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (October 13, 1948 - August 16, 1997) was primarily a singer of qawwali, the devotional music of the Sufis, a mystical offshoot of Islam. Traditionally, Qawwali has been a family business. Nusrat’s family (originally from Afghanistan, though they had been living in Pakistan for a large part of their lives) has an unbroken tradition of performing qawwali for the last 600 years. Nusrat took over his family’s qawwali party in 1971 after the death of his father and his uncle. In Pakistan, his first major hit was the song “Haq Ali Ali”. This was performed in a traditional style and with traditional instrumentation, and featured only sparse use of Nusrat’s innovative sargam improvisations. Nevertheless the song became a major hit, as many listeners were attracted to the timbre and other qualities of Nusrat’s voice. He reached out to Western audiences with a couple of fusion records produced by Canadian guitarist Michael Brook. In 1995, he collaborated with Eddie Vedder on the soundtrack of "Dead Man Walking". His contribution to that and several other soundtracks and albums (including "The Last Temptation of Christ"), as well as his friendship with Peter Gabriel, helped to increase his popularity in Europe and the United States. Peter Gabriel’s Real World label released five albums of Nusrat’s traditional Qawwali performances in the West. He also performed traditional Qawwali live to Western audiences at several WOMAD world music festivals.