Nazeri was born to a Kurdish family in Kermanshah, Iran, in 1950. He received traditional music instruction from his father and his uncles. He performed at Sufi (Islamic mystic) ceremonies, began singing at a very early age, and even sang on Iranian national television by age eleven.
Nazeri began studying radif, the classical Persian repertoire, and worked with some of the masters of modern Persian music, including Abdollah Davami, Nourali Borouman, and Mahmoud Karimi. He also studied to play the tar (a stringed instrument) with Habibollah Salehi. In 1969 he issued his first recording.
