Veteran singer Manny Dey, who lent his mellifluous and classical voice to some of the most immortal and haunting songs of yesteryear in Hindi and Bengali playback industry, turned 94 years on Wednesday.

Mannya Dey, who is originally Prabodh Chandra Dey, as a playback singer has rendered his voice in Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, and Assamese films.

Though his classical base made him one of the top classical singers in Hindi film playback singing world, he was a versatile singer who sang all kinds of numbers, including pop and folk.

He has recorded more than 3500 songs over the course of his career.

Dey started his career in playback singing with the movie, 'Tamanna', in 1943.

Dey sang 58 duets with Mohammad Rafi like "Isq Isq" (Barsaat Ki Raat) "Tu hai mera prem Devta (Kalpana), "Mama o mama" (Parvarish). With Lata Mangeshkar, Manna recorded 113 duets including Yeh raat bhigi bhigi,"Pyar hua iqrar hua", "Aja sanam madhur chandni mein hum", "Ritu aye".

With Asha Bhosle, Dey recorded more than 100 duets including "Re man sur me ga", "Tu chupi hai kahan", "Zindegi hai khel".

Dey also sang with singer/composer Hemant Kumar (Hemanta Mukherjee) in Bengali movies, and also for some other Bengali composers like Nachiketa Ghosh and Sudhin Dasgupta.

He sang a duet, "Ke Prothom Kachhe Esechi", with Lata Mangeshkar in the movie 'Sankhyabela'.

He has been honoured with the Padma Shri in 1971, the Padma Bhushan in 2005 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2007.