Daily Times

Renowned singer Pervez Mehdi was remembered on his 14th death anniversary on Thursday. Born to a musical family in 1947, his real name was Pervez Akhtar. He received initial training in music from his father Bashir Hussain Rahi. Later he was trained by Mehdi Hassan, who also renamed him as Pervez Mehdi. He also learnt Sitar from Ahmed Qureshi. His first break was through Radio Pakistan in 1968. Mehdi Hassan’s influence on his compositions and rendering was considerable. Pervez Mehdi rose to prominence through a folk number, Gori-e-Mein Janaan Pardes, he sang along with Reshma. He performed for more than 30 years and sang hundreds of songs, including folk, geet and ghazal for film, radio, tv and private musical sittings. Pervez Mehdi died of cardiac arrest on August 29, 2005 at the age of 58.