The Playback King

The New Indian Express, Friday, December 31, 1999

All set to enter the Guinness Book, SPB gives us an insight into his life, his gurus, and his music.

S P Balasubramaniam is a man with a hectic schedule – recordings and shooting assignments often stretching late into the night. Yet when he talks to you, he is cordial and relaxed and keen on a discussion on music.

Recently, he became the only other South Indian after Yesudas to win Lata Mangeshkar Award. SPB, as he is known to music circles, is now all set to enter the Guinness Book of World Records as the artiste with the maximum number of recorded songs (over 32,000 songs). “Even I don’t remember all my songs. I am making a list of my songs with the help of other people, which is to be submitted to the Guinness Book authorities,” volunteers the singer.

The engineering student from Nellore in Andhra Pradesh, who won a singing contest in Chennai and made his play back debut in 1963, has come a long way. Ever since the MGR film Adimai Penn launched him in a big way in 1969, SPB has been the playback king in Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada movies for three decades. With his debut Hindi song in Ek Duje Ke Liye (1981), he made his mark in Bollywood, especially in films like Maine Pyar Kiya, Sajan and Hum Aapke Hai Kaun. A few years ago he sang the semi-classical numbers composed by Naushad for Teri Payal Mera Geet, but the film flopped and the songs went unnoticed.

Now, busy with acting too, SPB is left with very little spare time. “Music is my passion. Acting is only a hobby. After all, every playback singer is an actor, as he or she has to sing for another person,” says SPB with a smile.

As for a playback singer’s most important asset, SPB says, “The voice is God-given. It must have pedigree, timbre, and character. A singer must also have the capacity to express. Of course, a sense of sruti and laya must be there.”

SPB feels that classical training greatly helps a singer. “Today, recording is a hectic affair. Classical training helps one to grasp the tunes quickly.” SPB himself, however, never had classical training. He was earlier apologetic about his non-classical background, until Yesudas helped him realise his true mettle. “Das Anna (Yesudas) told me not to feel guilty about it. He said that I’m a blessed singer and I need not feel apologetic about the lack of classical training.”

His semi-classical songs in Sankarabharanam (Telugu) won him his first National Award in 1980. Later he won the award for Ek Duje Ke Liye (1982), Sagara Sangamam (1984), Rudra Veena (1989), Ganayogi Panchakshari Gavai (1996) and Minsara Kanavu (1997). With six awards to his credit, he is second only to Yesudas, who was won seven National Awards.

About the necessity for a classical singer to have a variable range, he says, “Range is something you are born with, you can’t expand it through practice. And everyone cannot have a great range. For example, Mukesh was proficient in the lower notes, while Mohammed Rafi excelled in the higher octaves. It is unfair to blame a singer if he cannot sing a song for want of range. It is the music director’s responsibility to give each singer the songs which suit his range”.

As for personal preferences, he says “A young singer might like all kinds of songs. But as you grow in age and maturity, you develop a preference for melodies”. He stresses the importance of lyrics in film music. “Today’s craze for loud orchestration should not be allowed to submerge the lyrics.”

Unlike most other singers, SPB does not restrict his diet. “I’m a vegetarian. Otherwise I eat and drink everything, including cool drinks and ice-cream. I don’t feel that this will affect my voice. In my childhood I had no plans of becoming a singer. So I used to eat everything. My body is conditioned to accept all types of food.”

But he admits that he was careless with his voice during his early years in films. “I used to strain my voice excessively, singing and dubbing too much. On one day I recorded nineteen dozen songs every day”. As a result he developed a throat problem which doctors describe as the “singer’s nodule”, to cure which he underwent two throat operations.

“Even now Das Anna (Yesudas) asks me why I dub and act instead of protecting my voice. Das  Anna is like an elder brother to me. He has promised to teach me classical Kirtanas and has said that we will conduct a joint Carnatic music concert in Chennai. The maestro Balamuralikrishna also has promised to teach me Kirtanas. I am lucky to have such great gurus.”

Among the new singers, Hariharan is high on SPB’s preference chart—“A talented singer with a strong classical base and an excellent range”.

SPB’s childhood here Mohammed Rafi remains his all-time idol. “Rafi was a great singer and also a great person, known for his humanity and humility. An artiste’s heart should be clean. Only then will art come out”, says SPB.

He recently conducted a one-man show in Chennai, singing 26 songs at a stretch in a three-hour stage show. “The response was encouraging. You feel really inspired and you don’t feel any fatigue”, he says with a smile.