Born on June 4, 1946, and starting his career with engineering, legendary singer SP Balasubrahmanyam soon realised his true passion for singing and drifted that way. Even with his list of 40,000 songs and a mention in the Guinness Book of World Record for recording the highest number of songs by a singer, he had no qualms in calling himself an “untrained singer.”
“It is amazing. I don’t know how I lasted so long. I am not a trained singer. At this age, I am getting work and I am able to deliver,” Balasubrahmanyam told PTI in an interview in 2015. The singer died on September 25, 2020.
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The 74-year old gave innumerable hits in 15 languages including Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada among others. Recipient of Six National Awards for Best Male Playback Singer, several states and other awards, Balasubrahmanyam or SPB’s achievements outshine his regret of not having a college degree, when one looks at his career.
In the same interview, he said that classical music came as “blessing in disguise” and added that if he had learned it, he would have not sung light music well. He also named Mohammed Rafi as his ‘all time favourite’ singer and said that he has learned from the late legendary singer more than anyone else Known as ‘Balu’ among his close friends, the singer has also produced movies, acted in them while also lending his voice to actors like Kamal Hassan and Salman Khan.
The Nellore born artiste has also received civilian awards like the Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan. He made his debut as a playback singer with the Telugu film Sri Sri Sri Maryada Ramanna on 15 December 1966 and went on to sing songs in Tamil and Kannada thereafter.
However, SPB rose to prominence in 1980 when ‘Shankarabharanam’, a musical drama by the legendary actor MG Ramachandran released. SPB earned his first National Award with the movie which starred MGR and Jayalalitha. This earned him fame and with rising music directors like AR Rahman, SPB made a mark with his songs that never seemed to bore the audience.
In 1989, SPB lent his voice to Bollywood actor Salman Khan in the songs of his popular movie ‘Maine Pyaar Kiya’. The songs were huge hit among the audience and it earned him the Filmfare Award for the Best Male Playback Singer that year. After that, he continued lending his voice to Salman Khan and the duo shared several songs together, with ‘Hum Apke Hai Koun’ being a notable one. This made his position in India even more prominent and he became identified as Salman Khan’s voice in the following years.
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In the 1990s, SPB’s association with AR Rahman became successful right from ‘Roja’, where the music director saw his debut. In 2013, Balasubrahmanyam returned to Bollywood after 15 years, when he sang the title song for Shah Rukh Khan in the movie ‘Chennai Express’.
