The Woman Who Signed Her Voice Before Anyone Knew What a Record Was

In November 1902, in a makeshift studio in a Calcutta hotel, a woman stood before a brass horn and sang for roughly three minutes. When she finished, she spoke into the horn in English: My name is Gauhar Jaan. She is considered the first artist of the sub-continent to record on the gramophone commercially in November 1902.

Her voice was about to become a product, and she is said to have known exactly what that meant. She devised the wondrous formula of compressing Hindustani music to the 3 minute capsule, which is all that a single-side of a record could hold. Gauhar Jaan sings the evergreen Dadra ‘Aan Baan Jiya Mein Laagi’ set in Raag Gara and in Hindustani language. Don’t miss her announcing loudly at the end of the recording: her characteristic signature ‘My name is Gauhar Jaan!’

Early Life

She was born Eileen Angelina Yeoward in Azamgarh in 1873. After her parents separated, her mother, Victoria, converted to Islam, took the name Badi Malka Jaan, and moved to Banaras, and the daughter became Gauhar Jaan. In 1883 they settled in Calcutta, where she trained in music and dance and became known as one of the city’s leading performers.

Her records carried the label “First dancing girl, Calcutta”. “First” here meant top of the profession, not first in time. She was a tawaif, a professional courtesan-musician, a tradition that was central to Hindustani music and is now largely erased from its history.

The business of being Gauhar

Her fee is part of the legend. ThePrint reports she demanded Rs 3,000 for the session. This figure appears in many accounts, but treat it as “reportedly” until you trace it to a primary source. What is better documented is the scale. She made more than 600 records between 1902 and 1920 in several languages, including Bengali, Hindi, English, Gujarati, Tamil, Marathi, Arabic, Persian, Pashto and French. She later performed at the Delhi Durbar before the newly crowned King George V. And when she visited Madras in 1910, her songs were soon printed in a Tamil music book, evidence of how far a recorded voice could travel.

Why her name on the record matters

The signature line began as a labeling device, but it did something else too. In an era when recorded music was anonymous and mass-produced, she made sure every disc carried her identity. One legal commentary reads this as creating proprietary exclusivity over her work.

Whatever the original intent, the effect is hard to miss. Artists now fight over masters and credits, and she turned a technical requirement into a trademark more than a century ago.