S.P.BALASUBRAMANYAM – THE GENTLE GIANT

Imagine you are born in a poor family as one of the eight children, you are good at studies, you sing too and it is appreciated. But your scholastic ability and family situation demands you study well and settle to support the family, and there is little left to choose. This exactly was the situation of Sripati Panditaradhyula Balasubramanyam (1946-2020), better known as SPB, SP or Balu Sir.

A recently famous monologue “Itni Shiddat se maine tumhe paane ki koshish ki hai, ke har zarre ne mujhe tumse milane ki saazish ki hai. Kehte hain ki…agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaaho to puri kayanat usey tumse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai.” is very apt when it comes to SPB’s life. He knew he could sing, but was unaware of the magnitude of talent he was gifted with. Remember these names, these form the ‘kayanat’ who played a vital role in him becoming what he ultimately did. S.Janaki, S.P.Kodandapani, M.G.Ramachandran, K.Vishwanath and K.Balachandar.

Born in the southern town of Nellore in Andhra Pradesh, he had little musical background, apart from the fact that his father Mr Sambamurthy was a Harikatha singer. That was the lone source of livelihood for a family of ten. He was in no position to learn music. Only source for him was the songs played on radio which he relished. He was an intelligent kid, good at academics. A good obedient boy basically. Teachers at school identified his singing talent and he would happily sing in class, then at any function at school. His focus totally was on studies, and for obvious reasons. He dreamt of becoming an engineer, join government service, support his family, and fantasized about roaming in a government jeep. That was it! His efforts paid off and got an engineering seat as well. All set, he was happily pursuing his dream.

But the singer inside him was still alive and kicking. He used to participate in musical contests. At one such event, S.Janaki, then already established playback singer was the chief guest. Impressed with his singing, she made it a point to call him and speak to him.  Her words to him were “What are you doing here! You should be in Madras, singing for films!” It left him jolted and perplexed. With all humility he replied, “but Amma, I have not learnt music. I do not even know sa pa sa!” She smiled, “Neither do I, think about it.” He went back confused but again to his academic career.

At a similar contest at Madras, he won the first prize. Did not think much into it, went back to college. To his surprise, music director S.P. Kodandapani, who was one of the judges came searching for him and entered an ongoing class, calling him out! He said he needed a fresh voice for a song along with P.Susheela and P.B.Srinivas, well known singers of the time, and he wanted him to sing with them.

It is something serious when people of the stature of S.Janaki or Kodandapani say things about you and even come searching for you. They are well versed with music; their work is celebrated. It was a ‘Johari ko heere ki parakh’ kind of a situation and they had discovered one.

Soon he was standing in front of microphone along with established singers like P.Susheela, P.B. Srinivas to record his first song in Telugu, a 20 year old reluctant singer. That performance of his was enough for others to take note of this new voice in town.  Offers began coming in.  Those were the days of heavy voices like Ghantasala and PB Srinivas akin to KL Saigal or Noorjahan in the North and his voice was considered thin and reedy. His musical career had begun and there was no looking back. He had to discontinue his studies and with it the long cherished ‘Engineer’ dream. For his age, a choice of a life of security versus one of uncertainties cannot have come easy.

When we look at achievers, we only spot the achievements. The struggle is hidden behind the glitz and glam. It was not easy for SPB either. There were established singers across languages who had captured peoples’ imagination. He had to be content singing the odd number and dubbed versions of originals into other languages for many years. Once it so happened, Tamil superstar MG Ramachandran (who went on the become the Chief Minister) overheard him sing at one of the studios. He was mighty impressed and gave him a big break as his voice in one of his films. It went on to be a big hit and opened the flood gates for the new singer.

The 70s saw his slow rise and by mid and late 70s he was the first choice of leading music directors of south. There was hardly a film released without him singing in it. His duets with S.Janaki and P.Susheela went viral even before the terminology was coined. Then came an interesting turn of events which he shares in his interviews. Director K.Vishwanath was planning a movie based on the life of a Carnatic classical singer and he wanted SPB to sing the songs for the movie. Again, the hesitant singer in him emerged. He told K. Vishwanath he could not, because he was not trained in Carnatic classical. Making him sing would be a mistake, the film would suffer.

He refused and suggested to get them sung by a properly trained vocalist or someone like Jesudas who had classical grooming.  But the director would not budge. SPB began avoiding him! Finally, the director and music director had to take help of his father whom he couldn’t refuse. He agreed on one condition. Tracks of all songs be provided to him so that he could practice. He would play them nonstop as he hopped between studios. Songs recorded. Film released. It became a super duper hit. Won him his first National Award for best playback singer. The movie was the cult classic, Shankarabharanam.

This was the turning point of his career. All those who rubbished him as raw and reedy began realizing the huge potential of this untrained singer. He got busier by the day. People who have seen him recording have been astonished by his speed. Heard the composition once, one take and done! He would sometimes let the other singer prepare, go out, record another song elsewhere and comeback for recording.  When asked about this he would attribute it to the gift of the Almighty. Even in childhood whenever he heard a song, in addition to lyrics, he would remember the entire accompaniment including interludes, instruments played and even the bass guitars being played in the background during vocals!  He has recorded maximum 21 songs in a day in Kannada, 19 in Tamil and 16 in a day in Hindi. Another unique ability he had was to change the tone of his voice to suit the actor. He sounded different for each actor.

His stand out trait was his humility. He believed firmly that to be an artist, you must be a good person first. Success never changed his character. He remained grounded till the very end. He idolized Mohammad Rafi who had a big influence on his singing. He learnt the finer aspects of playback singing from S.Janaki and always referred to her as his Guru and mentor.

While the South film industry sang peans to him, the North remained happily oblivious.  This great North-South divide was finally crossed by the block buster movie Ek duje ke liye. Initially Laxmikant-Pyarelal refused him citing his accent, but director K.Balachandar insisted, saying the protagonist in the movie was from South and nobody else could sing for him, and the rest is history. He won the National award for the song ‘Tere mere beech mein’. He went on to record 240 plus songs in Hindi.

In his career spanning over 5 decades, he recorded over a staggering 40,000 songs in 16 languages, with maximum, over 15000 in Kannada. Interestingly he learnt to speak Kannada only in the year 2000 when he had to host a music reality show. His diction was so perfect that the people of Karnataka felt he was a native speaker. So was the case with the other Southern languages. Had he done the same for Hindi, he would have been the worthy successor to Kishore Kumar whom we lost early.

Apart from singing, he also worked as a dubbing artist, a music director, and a producer. He dubbed for Kamal Hassan in Telugu. A recipient of 6 National awards, multiple other awards across languages, Padmashri (2001) and Padmabhushan (2011), he left us in 2021 at the age of 73, succumbing to post Covid complications in Chennai. Posthumously, he was awarded the second highest civilian award Padmavibhushan in the year 2021.

The void he left is huge and unlikely to be ever filled.  While his legacy will remain an inspiration for generations to come and his timeless voice will continue to soothe millions, music lovers wish that he could answer the question that he asked in one of his most popular songs in the box-office hit, Saajan, “Jiye to Jiye kaise bin aapke?.”