SP BALASUBRAMANIAM – THE MAVERICK SINGER

                                                                              

                                                                                      By S. Prabhakar

SPB with National Award

Today the 4^th June is the 69^th Birthday of SP Balasubramanyam (fondly referred to as SPB or Balu).  SPB is predominantly Telugu play back singer but had been equally adapt  in speaking and singing songs in Tamil, Kannada, Hindi and also sang in many other Indian languages and can be credited for being the first ever cross over singer, which now has become order of the day.   The famous Kishore never sang in any south Indian languages  nor Ghantasala sang any songs in Hindi there by depriving the people of the opportunity for other audience to listen them to their favourite singer in their languages.   He is so prolific in his singing that he holds Guinness World Record for recording highest number of songs (over 40,000) and recording highest number of songs on a single day, a whopping 21 Kannada songs in just 12 hours.  He also recorded 19 Tamil songs and 16 Hindi songs in a day.   He has a great appetite for winning awards too.   He has a unique distinction of winning National Award for best male play back singer for a record six times in four different languages (Telugu, Hindi, Tamil and Kannada), AP State Government Nandi award for best play back singer for another record number of 25 times, Tamil state award 4 times and Kannada state award for 3 times and Film fare award for 6 times.   He is recipient of Padmashri and Padma Bhushan from Government of India.

       

SPB with Ghantasala

To begin with SPB never had it easy to break into playback singing in Telugu largely due to the colossal presence of Ghantasala (Vekateswara Rao) not only the best singer in Telugu but in all Indian languages for the sheer melody, wide range of singing and effortless singing.    In 1950s and 1960s there was no way Telugu film goers could accept anyone anywhere near Ghantasala.    He ruled the hearts of all Telugu movies goers and a house hold name not only in those days but till date after 40 years of his death.  So SPB had to make a very quiet and modest debut in Comedian turned Hero and Producer Padmanabham’s Sri Sri Sri Maryada Ramanna in 1966.    For atleast next five years or so he had to manage by signing for comedians heavily banking on his mimicry abilities (specially for Rajababu) and side heros/character actors.    The first Hero with whom his voice was associated was Krishna, who too had a frail and thin voice unlike the boomerang voice of NTR and deep voice of ANR.   But cleverly SPB started making inroads and tried to have a foot hold in Kannada and Tamil film industry at the same time.  

Come 70s the deteriorating health of Ghantasala and ultimately the untimely death of Ghantasala in 1974 has left the entire Telugu playback singing field wide open and SPB grabbed the opportunity with both hands.   Both NTR and ANR were at their peak and no one could imagine anyone except Ghantasala singing for them which he was doing for more than 20 years till then.   Here again apart from his singing abilities, SPB mimicry abilities helped him to adopt his voice for both NTR and ANR and in the next couple of years he succeeded in being accepted for NTR and ANR specially with super hit songs of Vetagadu for NTR and Premabhishekam for ANR. For next 25 years there was no looking back for him and an alternative options for Telugu producers.    

SPB with Illayaraja

Around the same time a great transformation took place in Tamil film industry.    TM Soundarya Tajan used to be the voice for decades for  MGR and Shivaji Ganesan and other Tamil stars who were bit loud and melodramatic in their expressions.   But younger heros like Rajnikant and Kamal Hassan who were in the ascendance were in a less louder and softer mold and TMS did not suit their style.  Grabbing this opportunity, SPB has stormed Tamil play back singing scene partnering very successfully with Music Director Illayaraja and female singer S Janaki.   For next two decades he recorded more than 90% of the Tamil songs.    Besides Rajni and Kamal his voice suited all the younger crop of Tamil heros.   In the entire 80s this trio of SPB-Illayaraja-S Janaki have cast a magical spell and produced some immortal duets.   He also made inroads in to Kannada films with the help of young music directors like Rajan Nagendra and dislodged and aging PB Srinivasan.   It is only in Malayalam he could not succeed and play and distinct second fiddle to the melody king Yesu Das. 

SPB with Vishwanath

The biggest shortcoming of SPB had been his not been trained in classical music and used to pale in comparison with Ghantasala as Ghantasala used to sing classical based songs so effortlessly.     But for the 1979 Telugu super hit movie Shankarabharanam, director K Vishwanath has preferred SPB over play back singer Yesudas and classical singer M. Balamuralikrishna.   On many occasions SPB honestly admitted that he was so scared and reluctant to sing songs of Shankarabharanam which were based on pure Carnatic classical music.  It is on the insistence of K Vishwanath and music director KV Mahadevan and his assistant Puhalendi he got trained in classical music for few months and took a sort of re-birth in music world.    As they say rest is History – not only the songs, music and movie Shankarabharanam became super hit but SPB acquired new found recognition and respect not only in Telugu film industry but all other industries.   He went on to win National Award for best male play back singers for Shankarabharanam.   K Vishwanath gave two more master pieces in Sagara Sangamam (again SPB won National Award for best male play back singer) and Swati Mutyam, both under the music direction of Illayaraja.  

With the new found confidence by the success of Shanakarabharanam under his belt, he ventured into Hindi films with Ek Dujekeliya – a remake of Telugu super hit Maro Charitra (with his favourite combination of Kamal Hassan and K Balachander).    Not only the songs have become a rage but he went on to win National Award for best male play back singer, again a first being the only South Indian singer winning National Award for best Male singer for a Hindi song.   For next five years or so he was equally busy belting super hits one after the other specially in `Maine Pyaar Kiya’ and `Hum Apke Hai Kaun’ and many other Salman Khan movies, before going back to be busy with Telugu and Tamil industries.  

With the strange and un-explainable trend of making most of the Telugu songs to be sung by Hindi play back singers and with age catching up, SPB has not been as prolific in the last 5 years as he was throughout his career but nonetheless he always keeps himself busy and visible and still counted as undisputed king of play back singing in Telugu and Tamil.

SPB with Kamal Hassan

Besides play back singing he dabbled in many other facets of movies viz., acting, music direction, dubbing, producing, directing, compering and above all judging music competitions on TV.  Special mention should be made about his mimicry and dubbing abilities. Right from 1975 release Manmadhaleela, he has been dubbing all the Tamil movies of Kamal Hassan remade into Telugu and on many occasions Kamal Hassan has complimented that SPB voice sounds better for his acting than his own voice.   If one has to judge his dubbing abilities  one should see Kamal Hassan’s `Dashavataram’ in which he brought so much of variation in dubbing for 10 different roles including a female character.  

He has set high standards and benchmark for judging music talent shows on TV and nurturing young talent.    He has been judging and compering PADUTA TEEYAGA a Telugu talent search show on E-TV for the last 17 years without break.   I have seen so many music talent search shows in many languages being judged by top singers and music directors.  Without fail every judge goes over-board in praising the participants taking sides openly and doing pre-determined role-playing to the hilt.    They give an impression that none of the participants ever did any mistake in singing and presenting the songs and there is no scope for improvement and never play the role of mentors.   In contrast, SPB keeps the lyrics of all songs to be sung by the participants, keeps head phones and takes notes while participants singing and once the song is completed by the singer first he praises them generously then points out very minute details of wrong pronunciations and all other technical fine points and make them sing correctly.    Never has he made the exiting contests feel that they lost something and it is end of the world.   For 17 long years he never used the word` losing/lost' there was no crying or showing any negative emotions by any participants.    He, being Encyclopaedia of Telugu music industry, gives so many side stories with every song giving credit to the lyricists and all musicians whose names and identities are not known to many and makes the programme so interesting and absorbing.     He has a fantastic command over Telugu language (so also Tamil and Kannada) and may be he is one of the last of the purists in the industry.      His enthusiasm, dedication and devotion in nurturing young talents is unmatchable.    Right through his career he steered away from controversies and never responded even to the worst critics.   Once Ismail Darbar, a relatively unknown music director of Hindi Film industry remarked to a contestant in a music reality show that if he keep singing like this you will end up being like SPB, blissfully ignorant of the achievements of SPB.     He might not have scored music to that many number of songs in his entire career which SPB might have sung in a month at peak of his career.    Anyone else would have let the hell loose on him but SPB chose to ignore and nothing can be more hard hitting than ignoring such worthless comments 

Another great ability of SPB is whenever he participates on stage shows, which he does even at the age of 69 years, he sings the toughest songs also very close to recording quality and never minds pairing up with young singers who are participants in music talent search shows.

 

SPB paying respect to Yesudas

Lastly the best quality I see and like in SPB is his humility, modesty and  great sense of gratitude.   He is lavish in his praise of all his contemporaries and new singers, lyricists, and all musicians (not only the Music Directors).   Though KODANDAPAANI is very small time music director in Telugu industry, he always takes his name in all stage shows and programmes with lot of dignity and reverence as he gave him his first break and named his recording theater after him. 

 

Though there is no denying that all my life I have been an ardent fan of GHANTASALA, I am proud of the achievements of SPB for the last 40 years of play back singing and proud of the fact that he is a Telugu singer and an Indian.   I wish him all health and wish and pray that he continues to contribute to Telugu and India music industry and all other fields. 

SPB SIGNS OFF AT THE AGE of 74 YEARS ON 25.9.2020

Though bulky and faced the related problems SPB maintained a very good general health and handled bariatric surgery very well.    But when contacted mild covid and immediately got admitted in hospital, for a long time there was hope of his recovering like many other senior cine personalities.    But his treatment prolonged and ultimately he lost the battle and left for heavenly abode leaving a great void in play back singing. 

Going by the trail blazing achievements, there is is no doubt in any one's mind that he is one the greatest playback singers India has produced.   As far as Telugu Industry is concerned he will be placed a notch below Ghantasala, but surely he is at par with the great like TMS,  Kishore Kumar and PB Srinivas.   He was a multi lingual and national singer in the real sense..    No other singer has established equally well in so many languages - specially Telugu, Tamil and Kannada.    No other singer is so multi faceted as he was.   Apart from Singing, he was extremely successful as Music Director, lyricist, actor, producer, director, recording theater owner, dubbing artist, judge and anchor in reality shows.

More than any one else, it is going to be great loss to the Telugu film industry.  They lost one of the greatest film personality - most impactful singer after Ghantasala.  There could never be any other singer who can come anywhere near the achievements of SPB.   His command over Telugu language, love for Telugu language is unmatchable.   Till he breathed his last, he was concerned and expressed his anguish the way Telugu language has been distorted by singers from other languages who murder the language day in day out and how can the industry reverse this trend.    Being gentleman he was, he was never critical of the singers concerned but always suggested producers, directors that let them learn the language, understand the meaning of the lyrics and emote the song and most importantly not insult the language by the distortion.    

SPB has left behind a great legacy specially for the budding singers.     There are thousands of his programs and videos where he gave so many tips, that will be a great learning experience to anyone who wants to learn.    Apart from singing, his hard working nature, focus dedication, devotion, humility, friendly nature and many other qualities 

SPB Sir, thanks for all entertainment for over five decades, which we all will enjoy for our life time.   You might have joined your mentors Kodandapani, Ghantasala and Rafi in the Heaven. and enjoying their company. 

   

S. Prabhakar

4.6.2015 / 27.9.2020