Aamir Zaki Biography

Aamir Zaki is one of Pakistan's most prolific guitar players. Zaki released his long awaited debut album Signature in 1995. Zaki's travails into cascades and cadences had somewhat of a rocky start. His father initially got him a drum kit that was deemed too loud. A saxophone took its place, but the trumpeting was too much for the family to handle. Finally a compromise was struck on the guitar and that suited everyone just fine, especially Aamir who immediately started working out melodies on one string. Soon he had learnt the ropes by instinct, playing the music others made before him. Playing alone soon got boring for young Zaki, so he started jamming' with a friend who played the drums. The drummer is now a cab driver in New York; hardly glorious, but he probably earns more than what he would have as a musician in Pakistan.

Zaki's advent into his twenties was far from prodigious. His father died and he looked after his family business of exporting local handicrafts. Two years later he'd had enough. He got out of the frying pan into the proverbial fire by getting married and got divorced another two years later.

His solo album - "Signature" featured one Urdu song, two English songs and the rest were instrumentals. He put his own money into releasing this high-risk venture. He produced the CDs in England and got Sonic to release them locally.

Sadly enough, despite being one of the most accomplished guitarist in the country and definitely the best musician in the pop/rock brigade, Zaki has come out with only one solo album. That is because he refuses to compromise on the music he makes. He maintains that there is no bass player or drummer competent enough to play with him, except Gumby, who has chosen to float along the mainstream tide with Junoon. Hear Zaki play and you will agree with him. He has the capacity to make any instrument emote. Zaki's guitar can make it wail or strum a sweet melody with equal ease. Zaki's tragedy is that he is some light years beyond the local music scene.