Pammi Baiਪੰਮੀ ਬਾਈ

Pammi Bai (born Paramjit Singh Sidhu) is a Punjabi folk singer, songwriter and bhangra choreographer from Jakhepal village in Sangrur district, based in Patiala, who has spent more than four decades defending the traditional sound of Punjab. Known as Bhangre Da Sher, the Lion of Bhangra, he sings with the old folk instruments, dances the old steps, and in 2016 received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, India's highest honour for performing artists, for his contribution to Punjabi folk music.

Jakhepal to the college stage

He was born in Jakhepal, in the Sangrur district of Punjab, the son of Sardar Partap Singh Baghi. Bhangra took hold of him early: as a schoolboy he danced at every function he could join, and at college he competed in inter university festivals and rose to become a dance director of bhangra. While studying for his M.A. he began to sing as an amateur, and theatre filled the rest of his time, including comic roles on Ram Lila stages. In 1982 he recorded his first song, Nachdi Jawani.

The twin calling of singer and dancer set him apart from the start. Where most Punjabi stars of his generation built their act around the microphone alone, Pammi Bai built his around the whole folk stage: the dhol and chimta, the toomba and algoza, the dance forms of Jhoomar, Malwai Giddha and the rest. He has performed in more than twenty countries as a bhangra dancer and folk singer.

Cassettes, Ashke and the long road

His first audio cassette came in 1987, recorded alongside the late folk singer Narinder Biba, and another followed with Surinder Kaur, the celebrated radio and television artist. One of his songs was recorded by Jagjit Singh for a 1991 cassette, and Music Today recorded two more. He worked with music directors including Surinder Bachan, Charanjit Ahuja, Kuljit Singh, Pandit Jawala Parshad and Ved Sethi, and national attention arrived from 1987 with the song Ashke.

The real break, by his own discography's account, came with music director Kuljit Singh and the songs Ji Ne Jan Nu Karda and Rangli Dunia Ton. Albums followed steadily: Ankhi Sher Punjab De (1987), Majje Malwe Duabe (1994), Dance With Pammi Bai (2000), Giddha Malwaian Da (2003), Putt Punjabi: Son of Punjab (2006), the Aman Hayer produced Punjaban (2009), Punjabiyan Di Balle Balle (2011), Jugni (2013), Diamond Sohniye (2015) and The 37th Chapter of Pammi Bai (2017). Twelve albums and more, each one returning to the folk sources that younger singers were leaving behind.

Carrying Punjab abroad

In 1989 he organised his first cultural performance for Indian Independence Day, and tours of Europe followed. In 2004 he was among the few Indian delegates at the World Punjabi Conference in Lahore, Pakistan, a folk artist representing his culture in the other Punjab. A tour of fourteen American cities followed in 2007. He served as chief judge at the World Punjabi Folk Dances Competitions in Toronto in 2009 and was invited back to perform there in 2014. For diaspora audiences, his shows delivered something the pop charts could not: the sound of the village fair, unchanged.

He is also a working teacher of the tradition he performs. As a bhangra dance director from his college days onwards, he has trained troupes, judged folk dance competitions at home and abroad, and insisted in his teaching on the same discipline he brings to the stage: the steps, costumes and instruments of the old Punjab, learned properly. His act draws on the full range of Punjabi folk forms, Jhoomar, Malwai Giddha, Dhandas and the sung boliyan that drive the dance, and he performs them as one connected art rather than as separate items on a programme.

Why is Pammi Bai called a guardian of Punjabi folk culture?

Because he has treated preservation as his life's work. His songs are built on the traditional instruments of Punjab, the toomba, algoza, toombi, sarangi, wanjli, bugdu, been, dhadd, dholki, dhol, ghara, chimta and dafli, played as they were meant to be played. At a time when the Punjabi music industry has leaned hard towards western sounds, he has argued in interview after interview that people should love and respect their mother tongue, and that folk music is not just entertainment but identity. The Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, presented by President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan on 4 October 2016, was the state's recognition of exactly that stand.

He remains, in the words of one Tribune profile, a singer of the soil. For listeners who want to hear what Punjabi folk music sounded like before the remix era, and for young artists looking for a root to grow from, Pammi Bai's catalogue is one of the surest guides there is.