: 40,000 Songs, 5 Decades, One Voice: The Magic of Padma Vibhushan SP Balasubrahmanyam #IndiaNEWS #Famous Personalities Before I knew what music meant to me, I had heard the timeless voice of Sripathi

40,000 Songs, 5 Decades, One Voice: The Magic of Padma Vibhushan SP Balasubrahmanyam #IndiaNEWS #Famous Personalities
Before I knew what music meant to me, I had heard the timeless voice of Sripathi Panditaradhyula Balasubrahmanyam, popularly known as SPB. It was on AR Rahman’s debut soundtrack album, Roja (1992), and the song was Rukkumani Rukkumani. Interestingly enough, as an impressionable four-year-old, I had first heard the song in Tamil during a winter dinner party hosted by my father’s work colleague in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
(Image above courtesy Facebook/92. 7 BIG FM)
Although I didn’t understand a word of the song or what it meant, I distinctly remember smiling to myself and constantly repeating SPB’s opening line “Rukkumani Rukkumani, Akkam Pakkam Enna Satham??? much to the amusement of the guests there.
It’s a voice that I have since heard for more than half my life, which I spent studying in different institutions across South India. Whether it was on a school trip to the holy city of Tirupathi or a tea shop on the streets of Taramani, Chennai, at five in the morning after an all-nighter preparing for a college exam — it’s a ubiquitous voice I couldn’t escape.
However, it was only after his sad demise on 25 September 2020 due to cardio-respiratory arrest, when I bothered to deep dive into the life and career of this once in a generation talent.
(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
‘The definitive introduction to music’
With a career spanning over 50 years and an eye-popping 40,000 recorded songs across films, TV serials and private albums and in 16 languages including Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi, SPB has worked alongside the greatest geniuses of Indian film music. From MS Viswanathan, KV Mahadevan, Naushad Ali, Laxmikant-Pyarelal and AR Rahman to the maestro Ilaiyaraaja with whom he shared a legendary partnership that influenced generations of music listeners in South India, he has worked with them all.
He was the voice of choice to provide ‘playback’ to some of the biggest stars of Indian cinema, including MG Ramachandran, Sivaji Ganesan, Gemini Ganesan, Rajinikanth and even Salman Khan. Such was the magnetic quality of his incredible voice that it would be very difficult to imagine anyone else filling those shoes. And, of course, there are countless highly skilled playback singers with whom he shared the booth with, including Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhonsle, KS Chitra, S Janaki, Kavita Krishnamurthy and so on.
What’s particularly astounding about SPB’s career is that his contributions don’t end at just being a singer of the highest quality. He also made his mark as a voice-over artist—for actors like Rajinikanth, Salman Khan, Anil Kapoor, Kamal Haasan and Girish Karnad—music director and actor.

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