SPB The God of Playback Singing...In Ten Episodes

Okay, here is a confession. If someone were to hold a gun up to my head and coerce out my Honest Top 10 SPB songs, I wouldn't look past my 'Emergency  Balu-Mottai' playlist stored on my iPhone. It would be as simple as that. Of course, if I were in a more considerate mood (who is, with a gun on his head, one may ask?), I would perhaps throw in an honorary MSV or AR Rahman number, but even that would be highly unlikely. I am the real McCoy when it comes to SPB-Ilaiyaraja fanatics. Otherwise (with no gun pointing at my head), I consider myself to be a person of highly eclectic musical tastes (sorry for the immodesty): I listen to old Hindi film songs till the tape gets stuck in the player; I am an ardent Jagjit Singh bhakt; my head bobs equitably to Mozart's Symphony No. 40 as it does for ML Vasanthakumari's RTP. I didn't eat for two days when Abba split; I love The Beatles and Dire Straits like I love chole bhatura and parota-korma. But then, when I am depressed,...

1981 is a tough year to slot. I mean, there were no earth-shaking world events that took place that year. Yes, there were a few failed and some successful assassination attempts on world leaders. Yeah, I know. "Successful" and "assassination" sound incongruous together, but you get the picture. Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II escaped attempts on their lives, while Ziaur Rahman (Bangladesh), Anwar Sadat (Egypt), and Mohammad-Ali Rajai (Iran) weren't so lucky. The Cold War was at its climax. The nations of the world were divided up as satellites of the super powers: United States and Soviet Union. Countries like India walked the sham middle-path of non-alignment but everyone knew that the shadow of the big-brother,  hafta vasoolis  loomed large over every country. Indira Gandhi was back as the Prime Minister after successfully toppling the Janata Party government of Morarji Desai and Charan Singh. As far as the Indian movie scene was concerned, it was the age ...

  1966 was a turbulent year. The Vietnam War was raging unabated. American President Lyndon Johnson was struggling to disentangle himself and his country from the mess. Mao Zedong had launched the Cultural Revolution with a vow to preserve Chinese Communism. The self-declared republic of Rhodesia was heading for a showdown with other African nations. The year started tragically for India as Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri passed away in Tashkent, in erstwhile Soviet Union, while negotiating a peace pact with Pakistani President, Ayub Khan. In the field of music and entertainment, this was the era of Shankar-Jaikishan, MS Viswanathan, Ghantasala, Devarajan Master, Mohammad Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar, TM Sounderarajan, and P Susheela. The Bombay triumvirate, Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, and Raj Kapoor and their southern counterparts -  MGR, NTR, Rajkumar, and Prem Nazir - were firmly entrenched as the leading stars in their respective industries.  Internationally, The Beatles clai...

  Let us get one thing straight as an arrow, folks. Sripathi Panditaradhyula Balasubrahmanyam , aka SPB aka Balu is the God of playback singing. Well, you may shrug your shoulders and say, that is too much of a sweeping encomium, even for someone as accomplished as Balu. Bestowing godliness upon a musically untrained film singer just because he is the recent sentimental favorite, is not how it works, you may argue.  You may further  contend that India brims with eminent musical talent that can perform unfathomable feats. Artists that: hit perfect pitch effortlessly; sing chittaswarams at the speed of Usain Bolt; utter swerving sargams @ a thousand rpm without moving a facial nerve; and milk the essence of seventy-two melakarta ragas in an eight-minute kirtana. So, what is the big deal about this Balu guy, you may ask? My counter to you would be: Yup. I get all of that (ok, I don't). But  when it comes to film music, the most popular and the most egalitarian form of m...