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

A film artiste said this about two of his biggest inspirations in acting: "If it had not been for Sivaji Ganesan, I would have never appreciated Marlon Brando". His point was that Ganesan was the medium through which he understood and appreciated the grammar of Brando's craft. It is perhaps the equivalent of people claiming to realize god through their guru. For me, Balu was that "medium", especially to get to Mohammad Rafi. For some reason, I had passionately loathed Rafi. Not because I had listened to him enough and made up my mind, but I had just decided not to like him. In general, I was so singularly focused on being a Balu bigot that I took it as a personal slight if someone so much as mildly admired another singer. I thought they had lost their mind or out to irk me.  It was somehow easier liking Kishoreda. I mean, what was not to like: the booming voice, the quirky personality, the comic timing, the yodeling, and of course, his legendary collaboration wi...

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,...

The term "Golden Age" has its origins in Greek and Roman mythology and is perhaps maligned in its casual overuse, especially in the filmy context. Many a superannuated artiste and film technician have tried to usurp that moniker for the era that they had peaked in. The Greeks had referred to the Golden Age to mean a mythical age of harmonious utopia, where everyone lived a virtuous life like MGR (of his movies). The gods and humans freely co-mingled and were often indistinguishable. Hindu mythology had an equivalent for it called the "Satya Yuga". When scribes and historians ascribe a certain period as a golden age, they are probably thinking of a few things: convergence of talents, great partnerships, and memorable creative output that stands the test of time. For example, the 1950s and 60s are called the Golden Age of Hindi Film music because great music composers, singers, lyricists, actors, and directors descended into Bombay at almost the same time and produced...

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 ...

The year was 1979. The hippies were drifting away. The universalism of the sixties and the seventies was wearing off with them. Democracies had stabilized and military dictators were bringing a semblance of uneasy calm to their territories. India was making a valiant attempt to come out of the gloom of the Emergency. The world seemed to be heading to a better place. Two events, though, would perhaps inextricably change the world for several decades to come. A popular movement by students, maulvis, and leftists led to the overthrow of the Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty of Iran, installing the US-backed Ayatollah Khomeini as its supreme leader.  Towards the end of the year, the Grand Mosque of Mecca, considered to be the holiest place for a billion Muslims, was besieged by armed militants with a goal to dislodge the royal family of Saudi Arabia. Their motive was to return to the "original ways of Islam" and repudiate everything perceived to be western - TV, sports, music, and mate...

Balu's first two numbers in Tamil were smash hits. It was not just the songs that were hits. The singer was as well. What people loved about Balu was how artfully he plaited his fulsome voice with what would become his trademark  musical gimmickry, thus far unheard of in the South. There were the detractors - some felt his singing was too "light" while others argued that his style was too overstated. Till then, the singing stalwarts in Tamil were, without exception, classically trained and sang right from their lower stomach. Seergazhi Govindarajan's booming voice emerged from his naabi and reached the listener, without a microphone or a radio, my cousin used to say. It was a back-handed compliment, to indicate that most yesteryear singers lacked finesse. I didn't say it, my cousin did. I will tell you this though. What Balu brought into vogue was his voice acting; a type of emotive, nuanced singing that had a tinge of Rafi, a whiff of Ghantasala and the timbre o...

  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 start from where it all began. SP Balasubrahmanyam was born in Konetampet (present-day Tiruvallur district, Tamilnadu), a year before India’s independence, in an orthodox, Telugu brahmin family that hailed from Nellore in Andhra Pradesh. His father, SP Sambamurthy, was a Harikatha exponent and his mother, Sakunthalamma, looked after the bounteous family of three brothers and five sisters, that included SP Shailaja, who would go on to become a popular playback singer later in life. A TWIST OF FATE Growing up, in the early 60s, SPB had a typical Indian, sub-urban dream: to become an engineer, qualify to be a khaki-clad gazetted officer in his native Nellore, and ride around in an official Jeep eliciting salutes from his subordinates and the public. He was definitely artistically endowed. He sang and won prizes in music competitions, acted in school plays, and even formed a music band of his own, but had never taken his talents seriously. He enrolled into Jawaharlal Nehru Technical...

  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...