S P Balasubrahmanyam: A youthful voice that transcended language barriers

Veteran singer S P Balasubrahmanyam, popularly called SPB, died in a Chennai hospital today after battling Covid-19 for over a month. He was 74. He was admitted to MGM Healthcare on August 5 and was shifted to the intensive care unit eight days later as his condition deteriorated. Though he tested negative for the virus in early September, he remained on life support treatment. The hospital said in a statement that he died of a cardio-respiratory arrest.
 

Balasubrahmanyam’s was a voice that transcended the barriers of language and had such a range that it worked on actors across regions and generations. Over 50 years, he gave more than 40,000 songs in 16 languages — a feat that earned him a place in the Guinness Book for recording the highest number of songs by a singer.
 

He also once recorded 21 songs in 12 hours for Kannada composer Upendra Kumar; and 19 Tamil and 16 Hindi songs in a day. And in the song, “Mannil Indha Kaadhal” for the Tamil film Keladi Kanmani (1990), he practically didn’t stop for a breath as he sang two stanzas.

 

But numbers aside, his was a voice that went straight to your heart.
 

Balasubrahmanyam began his career as a playback singer in Tamil and Telugu cinema, and later went on to make a mark in Bollywood, becoming the first crossover voice to gain success of this scale in Bollywood.
 

His voice first travelled to Bollywood in 1981, accompanying another debut — southern actor Kamal Haasan’s. The film was Ek Duuje Ke Liye, a tragic love story between a Tamil man (Haasan) and a north Indian woman (Rati Agnihotri). The duets with Lata Mangeshkar — “Tere mere beech mein”, “Hum bane tum bane” — became instant hits and Balasubrahmanyam received a National Film Award for best male playback singer. This was his second National Film Award; the first one was for Sankarabharanam (1980), often cited as one of the finest Telugu films made. Not many know that he was also a voiceover artist for Hassan, whenever the latter’s Tamil movies were dubbed in Telugu. And that he himself acted in a few movies.
 

It wasn’t just the success of Hasaan’s Bollywood debut that he had a part to play in. Towards the end of the 1980s came another big-ticket film, Maine Pyar Kiya that launched the career of another big-ticket star, Salman Khan. Balasubrahmanyam’s voice that had worked well on Hasaan, who was in any case playing a young Tamil man, surprisingly also perfectly suited the lanky, dreamy-eyed Khan.
 

That was the magic of his deep, feel-good voice.
 

His collaboration with musician A R Rahman, right from Rahman’s debut film, Roja (1992), also resulted in some memorable songs. The Chennai Express (2013) title song also had his voice.
 

Balasubrahmanyam collected six National Film Awards in his lifetime. His last song, “Bharath Bhoomi”, composed by Ilaiyaraaja as a tribute to Covid warriors, was unveiled as recently as May 30.
 

Born into an orthodox Telugu Brahmin family in Andhra Pradesh, Balasubrahmanyam was the second son in a family of eight children. His father, S P Sambamurthy, was a well-known exponent of the traditional art of Harikatha.

 

The turning point for him as a singer came in 1964, when he won the first prize in a competition organised by Chennai-based Telugu Cultural Organisation. Music director S P Kodandapani spotted him and introduced him as a playback singer in the Telugu film Sri Sri Sri Maryada Ramanna (1967).
 

“Paadum Nila” (Singing Moon) – that’s what his fans came to call him. “His was the breeze-like voice of A M Raja, with the softness of P B Srinivas and the effortlessness of Mohammed Rafi,” said film music historian Vamanan.
 

He sang for nearly four generations of Tamil artistes including M G Ramachandran (MGR), Sivaji Ganesan and Rajinikanth, besides Haasan.
 

It was a voice that didn’t age. And it will continue to linger through the rich musical repository he has left behind.