Finally after a prolonged battle for life, the greate Indian singer S. P. Balasubrahmanyam has left us once and for all. He was admitted in the hospital for treating Covid 19 Pandemic and later he has come across with many health issues.
He was an Indian playback singer, music director, actor, dubbing artist and film producer. He has tirelessly worked many years in the Indian musical industry. He was a gifted singer who has got the power of mesmerizing the audience with his magical voice. While he was singing, he used to perform like an actor on the Mic and his journey in the Indian Music industry was remarkable and unimaginable.
SPB is a Multi-Faceted Artist. He was one of the best and versatile singers in India and he was singing Classical, semi-classical, romantic, fun-filled, fast-beat, ghazal, kawwaali, bhajans, etc.
His name is in the Guinness book of world record for singing maximum number of songs in a lifetime. With an average of 930 songs a year or nearly 3 songs a day, SPB has sung 40,000 songs in various Indian languages such as Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. His world record remains to be an unbeatable feat by any singer in the world.
Apart from creating world record in singing, SPB was a music director for 46 films in four different languages such as Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi. SPB has combindly acted in more than 70 films in Kannada, Tamil as well as Telugu. The main advantage of SPB is that he can fluently speak almost all the major South Indian languages. Earlier SPB was also giving voice to artists such as Rajnikanth, Kamal Hassan, Salman Khan, Girish Karnad, Gemini Ganesan, Karthik, Raghuvaran etc.
His actual name is Sripathi Panditaradhyula Balasubrahmanyam. He has received six National Film Awards for Best Male Playback Singer for his singing contributions in four different languages; Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi.
Details of the National Awards are given below:–
In 1979 Telugu Song Omkaara Nadhaanu song
In 1981 Hindi Song Tere Mere Beech Mein song
In 1983 Telugu Song Vedam Anuvanuvuna song
In 1988 Telugu Song Cheppaalani Undi song
In 1995 Kannada Song Umandu Ghumandu Ghana Gar Je Badara song
In 1996 Tamil Song Thanga Thamarai song
Apart from the above, he received Bollywood Filmfare Award, six Filmfare Awards from different South Indian movie industry, 25 Andhra Pradesh state Nandi Awards, many other state awards from Karnataka as well as Tamil Nadu.
He has also received the state NTR National Award in 2012 for his contributions to Indian cinema and in 2016 he was honored with the Indian Film Personality of the Year consisting of a Silver Peacock Medal. He was a recipient of civilian awards such as Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan from the Government of India.
While he was studying he used to participate and perform in several muscial competitions. Earlier he was heading a Muscal troupe where there was Anirutta on Harmonium and Illayaraja on guitars and percussion. Those days there was a magical and miraculous combination between Balasubramanium and Ilayaraja. His association with Illayaraja continued for many years. In 1966, SPB was introduced to film music with Sri Maryada Ramanna under his mentor Kodandapani. Later, he made his debut in Kannada, Tamil, and Malayalam and become India’s most versatile playback singer. SPB was having good musical combination with A.R. Rahman too.
S.P.B. was widely popular in Bollywood and he has sung Salman Khan’s movies like ‘Maine Pyaar Kiya’ and ‘Hum Aapke Hain Kaun’ along with Lata Mangeshkar. The entire songs he has sung in Bollywood were an evergreen hit including “Chennai Express”.
A R Rahman who has achieved his first breakthrough in Roja film and SPB was the main instrumental in his success. SPB’s association with Rahman was a great hit in the Bollywood film industry. Since then they were working together on many projects and achieved great success.
Balasubramaniam has working with many popular music directors such as G.K Venkatesh, Ranga Rao, Rajan Nagendra, Deva, Vidyasagar, Keeravani, Rajkumar, Hamsalekha etc.
SPB’s association with Hamsalekha was the best and he has sung countless number of Kannada movies. Karnataka has accepted him in such a way that SPB has become a part and parcel of this land’s culture and heritage. SPB has won a National Award for the best playback singer for the Kannada film ‘Sangeetha Sagara Ganayogi Panchakshari Gavai.’
His songs in Shankarabharanam film was a great hit and the people were crazy in listening his classical songs. K.V. Mahadevan was the music director of this film. It was an acid test for SPB to sing classical notes songs. Though he was not a classically trained singer like K.J. Yesudas and Bala Muralikrishna, but still he was selected for singing the songs for Sankarabharanam movie. SPB has taken vehement efforts and the Sadhana he showered never went in vein and the songs turned out to be chart-busters and he got national award for the best male playback singer. K.V. Mahadevn bagged National award for the best music director.
Its was a remarkable and incredible journey of SPB in the Indian Musical industry. Indian people are going to miss a unique, legend and versatile person in future.
May his soul rest in peace. His golden memories will always remain in the hearts and minds of the entire Indians in future.