Alamgir (pop singer)

Alamgir Haq, usually referred to as just Alamgir ( ur, ); born 11 August 1955), is a Pakistani singer-songwriter, guitarist, and one of the pioneers of pop music in Pakistan. His style of singing is inspired by playback singer Ahmed Rushdi and Elvis Presley.

Early life

Alamgir was born on 11 August 1955 in East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh). His father, Farmuzal Haq, was a politician and a member of the All India Muslim League as Secretary of Treasury and later a member of Pakistan's National Assembly during the presidency of Ayub Khan. He also studied in Mirzapur Cadet College, Tangail, in the province of East Bengal. He briefly studied at Shaheen School in Dhaka. In 1971 at the age of around 15, he moved to Karachi, West Pakistan to continue his studies at the University of Karachi before immigrating to the USA.

Career

He settled in the PECHS area of Karachi and started singing in the evenings, around 1971, at a small café called 'Globe Hotel' on Tariq Road, Karachi. He was promised Rs. 350 per month plus free dinner. The café was famous for its intellectual gatherings and that is where his potential talent was spotted. Someone from the audience in the hotel liked his style of singing and playing the guitar. So that person told him about a programme on the Pakistan Television Corporation station called ''Ferozan'' where the program host Khushbakht Aliya was conducting a show for the youth. He gave his audition, Khushbakht liked his singing and the guitar playing but she had already selected someone else. It just so happened that renowned Pakistani music composer Sohail Rana was also sitting in the same room who later asked someone to call Alamgir to his car outside the TV station. Sohail Rana said, he liked his (Alamgir's) guitar playing and asked if he would like to perform as a guitarist for his children's programme ''Hum Hi Hum''. This is how Alamgir entered in the formal world of music.

He started singing on the Pakistan Television Corporation TV channel at the beginning of the 1970s, when the people in Pakistan were not yet familiar with the modern Urdu pop music and when western music was generally considered as modern music in Pakistan. Shair Siddiqui hired him for the first pop musical program ''Sunday Ke Sunday'', a TV series of Karachi Television in 1971, and introduced Alamgir with the song ''Albela Rahi''. It proved to be a hit in 1972 among the youth of the 1970s. There was a time during the 1970s when the music loving boys and girls gathered regularly on the streets near the Karachi Jheel Park. The most notable Bengali song he is known to sing is ''Aamay Bhashaili Rey''.

Alamgir quickly made his mark on the Pakistani music scene. He sang for the Pakistani television in the very beginning of his career, but later as the time passed, he started singing for the Pakistani music industry. He also performed abroad. Alamgir inherited polycystic kidney disease (PKD) from his mother, and underwent kidney dialysis three times per week and required a kidney transplant. He currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. He is respected by the music lovers everywhere and still performs in live concerts in America.

In 2012, Alamgir visited Pakistan and performed in various shows. He returned to Pakistan to make a comeback on the TV screen specially for his fans who grew up with him. In April 2013, Alamgir joined Meesha Shafi