First appeared in www.scroll.in on November 1, 2014. Vocalist Amir Khan (1912-1974) was one of the major trendsetters in Hindustani music in the second half of the twentieth century. Son and disciple of Shahmir Khan, Amir Khan was originally a resident of Indore, but spent many years in Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta. He incorporated several influences and went on to create a style of khayal singing that impacted successive generations of vocalists. The slow and sombre quality that he