The Ultimate Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Vol. 2: 1983-1984

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan ~ The Ultimate Nusrat Fateh Ali K By the time he died in 1997, Ustad (a Muslim honorific) Khan was world-famous. But long before Michael Brook and Eddie Vedder came calling, he was already a revered qawwal (Sufi devotional singer) known throughout India and his native Pakistan as Shahen-Shah (The Brightest Of Stars.) From the start of his career, numerous recordings of his live concerts were treasured by the faithful and sorting through such a vast and sonically varied back-catalog must have been a daunting, sensitive task. During the mid-eighties, Ustad Khan¹s style was perhaps a bit less polished than it would later become but his intoxicatingly beautiful tenor voice and gift for intricately constructed yet free-flowing improvisation were very much in evidence. His vocals were throaty, passionate, and ethereal, propelled by an unquestioning, self-annihilating belief in a higher power. Few listeners, then or now, could possibly hear him in full cry and not be changed forever. --Christina Roden

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