Kuldeep Manak was born at Jalal in Bathinda district in 1951 and is the singer most associated with kali, the Punjabi ballad form that tells a story of loss at length.
He recorded the old narrative material, the qissas and the historical episodes, at a time when Punjabi commercial music was going toward short duet songs. Tere Til Da Nishana, Sahiban Bani Bharawan Di, Jind Mahi.
His voice carried the Malwa accent without modification and he sang material that assumed the listener knew Heer, Mirza and Puran Bhagat.
He worked with the lyricist Dev Tharikewala and with Hardev Dilgir, known as Dev Tharike Wala, whose written material is a substantial body of Punjabi narrative verse in its own right.
He is the reference point for a large part of Punjabi music now, cited by singers who never met him. He died in 2011.
The kaliyan he sang are the long narrative form, the material of the qissa and the historical episode, and he made them commercial at a moment when the market wanted duets.
Tere Til Da Nishana, Sahiban and Mirza are his standards, and almost every Punjabi singer since has recorded one of them.
He died in 2011 after years of illness. His son records and the catalogue is reissued, but no complete authoritative edition of his recordings exists.