The subtlety of PB Sreenivas and AM Rajah was considered a lesser art.Ĭhange came in the late ‘60s and early ’70s, when directors such as K Balachander filmed the drama of family life and the nuances of social engagement. The high-pitched singing of TM Soundararajan, Sirgazhi Govindarajan and KV Mahadevan was the norm. MG Ramachandran, Sivaji Ganesan and NT Rama Rao, all with foundations in theatre, donned these epic roles, and singers who lent their voices to these characters had to match their theatrics.
Cinema was the medium that created the Dravidian superhero through a thematic insistence on valour and ethnic pride. In the preceding decades, epics and myths were used to bolster the prevalent political discourse. But as in sports, mere numbers do not make a great artist.īalasubrahmanyam emerged on the scene in the late 1960s, when South Indian films were going through an epochal change in direction. Where will history place SPB, as he is known, in the pantheon of great singers? His sheer longevity, perhaps matched only by the other south Indian stalwart KJ Yesudas, sets him apart from most. He has sung over 40,000 tracks in his mother tongue Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. In 2015, it was the singer’s partner in his musical journey, Ilaiyaraaja, who received the award.īalasubrahmanyam’s songs are part of the collective experience of film fans across southern India. In December 2016, SP Balasubrahmanyam completes half a century of playback singing – the equivalent of cricketer Sachin Tendulkar if we take into account the magnificence of the consistency in this longevity.īalasubrahmanyam will also be honoured with the Centenary Award for Indian Film Personality of the Year at the International Film Festival of India (November 20-28).
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