According to his wife Daljeet Kaur, he was suffering from kidney damage and had heart and lung problems. “His heart was functioning at 25 per cent and doctors had advised a bypass, which he rejected,” she said.
Born in 1957 in a village near Ludhiana, Janjua came from a family of farmers. He was drawn to music after listening to his grandfather, Bakhtawar Singh, perform kirtan.
When his father asked him to choose between farming and music, he opted for the latter, and made his way to Ludhiana where he started training under musician Jaswant Bhamra.
About his early years, Gurbachan Gill, president of Punjabi Sahitya Akademi said, “He would sing boldly in the days of terror, along with another singer Pawandeep.” But it was the song in Boom that established Janjua as the quintessential Punjabi voice in mainstream Bollywood, which was different from the existing voices of Mika Singh and Honey Singh.
It still had a touch of folk, which the audience rediscovered in Queen’s ‘London thumakda’ and ‘Jee karda’ from Singh is Kiing.