Surinder Kaur, who has died aged 77, was one of the most popular Punjabi folk singers of the gramophone age. She was born to Hindu parents in Lahore, the capital of what was then the undivided state of Punjab, though she and her eight siblings were raised as Sikhs.
Kaur and her sister Parkash had a rigorous classical musical training under Inayat Husain, a Muslim, and Pandit Mani Parshad, a Hindu. No other popular contemporary Punjabi singer, except Nusrat Fateh Ali (also trained in classical music), mastered the nuances of the Indian musical scale to the same extent.
In August 1943, when she was 13, Kaur gave her first live performance on Lahore Radio, and the following year made her first record, along with her sister, for HMV. The duo soon became household names across the sectarian divide, and no Punjabi wedding was complete without their songs - played on hand-wound machines with mother and daughter as protagonists. In Punjabi culture, the departure of the newly wed daughter is always a heart-breaking scene, which from her family's side can only be seen as death before reincarnation.
After the partition of India split the Punjab in 1947, Kaur moved to Delhi with her parents, and then to Bombay, the centre of the Hindustani film industry, working as a film playback singer until 1952. She then returned to Delhi and married Joginder Singh Sodhi, a lecturer in Punjabi literature at Delhi University: "He was the one who made me a star," she recalled. "He chose all the lyrics I sang and we both collaborated on compositions." They both travelled to farflung villages in East Punjab for Ipta, the Indian People's Theatre Association, run by the Indian Communist party and spreading the message of worldwide peace.
Apart from folksongs, Surinder Kaur sang Muslim Sufi Punjabi kafis and lyrics by contemporaries such as Nand Lal Noorpuri, Amrita Pritam (obituary, November 4 2005), Mohan Singh and Shiv Kumar. She used to reminisce about the golden days of Punjabi music, when discerning listeners respected artists like her; she very much resented the present-day tendency towards fusion. Her best duet partners were female: her sister, her daughter Dolly Guleria and granddaughter Sunaina - and in recognition of the success of this collaboration, in 1995 the album Surinder Kaur: the Three Generations was released.
Surinder Kaur has left more than 2,000 recorded songs, and will be missed by 120 million Punjabi-speaking people around the world. Her husband predeceased her in 1975, but her three daughters survive her.
· Surinder Kaur Punjabi, folk singer, born 25 November 1929; died 14 June 2006