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Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan music biography continued...

hours, earning ardent fans not only in the Islamic world, but around the globe as well. Nicknamed Shahen-Shah-e-Qawwali (the Brightest Star in Qawwali), he was born on October 13, 1948, in Lyallpur in the Punjab Province of Pakistan. He made his first recording in 1973 in Pakistan and on a number of early EMI (Pakistan) albums was jointly billed with his uncle Mubarak Ali Khan. Between 1973 and 1993 he would go on to release more than 50 albums on numerous Pakistani, British, American, European and Japanese labels. Real World was the label largely responsible for Khan's breakthrough into a non-Indian audience. Using the WOMAD organization as a platform and some marketing savvy, the label introduced Khan to Westerners in the album Mustt Mustt (Real World CD RW 15) released in 1990. Seen as a deliberate attempt to target the white market with its non-traditional arrangements, critics said "It seems positively cherubic beside later abominations."
Khan referred to the albums that he put out for the Western market as "experiments," but critics decried the many remixes aimed at the Western and youth-market, as a source of despair and urged music lovers to operate on a buyer beware basis. In fact, the Western market was so saturated with his work, that Khan holds the world's record (verified by the Guinness Book of World Records) for the biggest recording output by a Qawwali artist (a total of 125 albums of recorded music). Many fans regret the dilution of his talent that has occurred with his "experiments," though in terms of singing his traditional work, he remained peerless. In 1994, reportedly tired of unauthorized releases, Khan took greater control of both his business affairs and his concert and recording activities. At the height of his fame, Khan died on August 16, 1997—his demise followed by a seemingly endless parade of posthumous releases.