“I have recorded nearly 5,000 songs for Kannada films, so choosing the best would be the toughest job, please don’t ask me such questions,” said a candid S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, the king of playback singing, who was speaking at the city ahead of the Shree Vidyaranya Yuvaka Sangha’s 52nd Bengaluru Ganesh Utsava.
Balasubrahmanyam, the Guinness Record holder for highest number of songs sung, said “I have to be grateful to this sangha for bringing me closer to my fans. If I am close to completing 50 years of my career, the sangha too has half-a-century record of its melodic history.” The sangha’s founder members A. Mariyappa and G.K. Obiah were present.
Balasubrahmanyam recalled the days when every year he promised fans in Karnataka that he would speak in Kannada the next year. “It took me 10 years to garner courage for this, and I am grateful to all the music directors who helped me converse in Kannada in the early 1970s. Ranga Rao first took me into the Kannada fold in 1975 and since then I have never looked back,” he said.
Recalling the evergreen days of playback recording, he lamented that the golden era was when everyone involved for a recording sat together to make music. “The technology-oriented ‘plastic’ days of today may retain melody, but not the kind of personal contact that had us feverishly rehearse each song 20-30 times! I am happy that the Kannada songs still care for melody compared to many other languages,” he said. Sangha Managing Trustee S.M. Nandish gave a visual tour of the utsava’s 51-year history, which depicted India’s finest cultural ambassadors speak of the Ganesh Utsava’s value addition to the music world.
