SP Balu apprehensive on singing those songs

SP Balasubramanyam is undoubtedly the uncrowned King of playback singing in South India. His voice quality and especially his capability to emote with his voice have made him what he is today. Every day we see a new singer emerging as a promising one in playback singing. Nevertheless SP Balu remains unbeaten for the unique niche he carved for himself over the years. His card to National Level fame had certainly been ‘Shankarabharanam’. The film won him National Award for the first time.

But when he was actually approached by music director KV Mahadevan to sing for the classic movie, he was apprehensive to sing because the songs of the film were classical based and he didn’t have any formal classical musical training or knowledge. But KV Mahadevan remained adamant and delegated the work to his assistant Puhalendi to make Balu sing the songs. With Puhalendi’s help, Balu practised the songs and finally gave overwhelming output.

After 35 years Balu is once again singing those same songs in Tamil for the Tamil dubbing of the film. The film is colour corrected and technically made better with the present technology but the music remains untouched. K Vishwnath’s ‘Shankarabharanam’ is going to release in Tamil very soon. SP balu hopes that this movie would become a block buster in Tamil even.