Ustad Barkat Ali Khan (1908 -19 June 1963) was a Pakistani classical singer, younger brother of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and elder brother of Mubarak Ali Khan,[1] and belonged to the Patiala gharana of music. Barkat Ali Khan was born in Kasur in the Punjab province of then British India. He had his initial training from his father, Ali Baksh Khan Kasuri, and later by his elder brother Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. After 1947 Partition of British India, Barkat Ali Khan, with his family, migrated to Pakistan and focused on the lighter aspects of Hindustani classical music. He was widely acknowledged as one of the great exponents of Thumri, Dadra, Geet and Ghazal, and was well known for both Purab and Punjab Ang Thumris. The great Mohammad Rafi was a shagird of Barkat Ali Khan.
Many still consider him a superior thumri singer than his elder brother, though he didn't receive acknowledgement to the extent Bade Ghulam Ali Khan did. He taught noted ghazal singer Ghulam Ali. Many people in Pakistan say that simplicity and humility were the hallmark of his personality. He started a new trend of ghazal-singing in Pakistan. Before Mehdi Hassan became known as the 'King of ghazals' in the 1970s, Barkat Ali Khan and Begum Akhtar were considered the stalwarts of ghazal-singing during the 1950s and 1960s. Barkat Ali Khan, in a rare live radio interview to Radio Pakistan, Lahore, had said," My forefathers, at one time, lived in the hilly tracts of Jammu and Kashmir, so they used to sing 'songs of the hills' (Pahari Geet). I learned to sing those Pahari Geets from them".
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