A Tribute to SP Balasubramaniam a/k/a SPB

This video is dedicated to Shri. SP Balasubramaniam to celebrate his long years in the Indian film industry and for being my inspiration. #SPB #TributetoSPB #SPBalasubramaniam. If you like it, please leave a comment and/or click thumbs up.
Sripathi Panditaradhyula Balasubrahmanyam a/k/a SPB was born June 4th, 1946. He is an Indian musician, playback singer, television anchor, music director, actor, dubbing artist, and film producer who worked predominantly in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, and Malayalam films. SPB made his debut as a playback singer in 1966 with Sri Sri Sri Maryada Ramanna, a Telugu film scored by his mentor, S. P. Kodandapani.
He intended to be an engineer by profession but had a fall-out due to a bout of typhoid.
His biggest singing idol was Mohammed Rafi.
SPB's early Tamil songs were duets with P. Susheela, "Iyarkai Ennum Ilaya Kanni" in the 1969 film Shanti Nilayam, and "Aayiram Nilavae Vaa" in Adimaippenn.
He won six Indian National Film Awards for Best Male Playback Singer for his work in four different Indian languages. According to some sources, he holds the Guinness World Record for recording the highest number of songs by a singer with over 40,000 songs. He has also provided voice-overs for various artists, including Kamal Haasan, Rajinikanth, Vishnuvardhan, Salman Khan, Anil Kapoor, Gemini Ganesan, Nagesh and Raghuvaran in various languages.
SPB admitted during one of the interviews that he didn't have a formal training in music “I don’t know music, swaras and notations, I write slowly… and do it mathematically.
Being a multifaceted personality , SPB's contribution to acting, movie direction, composing, dubbing (voice-over), TV shows, identifying new talent are invaluable. His natural ability to excel in all visual art related field is astounding. SPB' ability to understand the lyrics, imagine the onscreen picturization of his song(s) and emote through his voice accordingly made the actor's job significantly easy. Additionally, his ability to modulate his voice to suit the onscreen character was astounding. Hats off to his versatile singing ability.
His humility is unsurpassed, the way he conducts himself is unblemished. He has always been there to stand-up and be counted to the thousands and thousands of charity concerts or fund-raising events when it comes to social service.
Referring to a reality show wherein he observed kids singing he said, "I can't comment on the nuances such as "aarohanam" and "avarohanam" ( terms used in Carnatic Music as a terse formula/description of the order of swaras (notes) in a Carnatic raga i.e. a description of the raga's structure), I only suggest to them how it could be sung in a more expressive manner. Sometimes I ask the children which Raga it is, as I am trying to learn from them”. It showed his humility despite belting out 40,000+ songs in his lifetime.
SPB by numbers:
- More than 40,000 songs sung
- Acted in more than 72 films
- Music Director for more than 46 films
- Record holder for recoding 21 songs in 12 hours
- Indian Government 6 National awards
He was a recipient of the Padma Shri (2001) and Padma Bhushan (2011). These are highest civilian awards presented by the Government of India.
After a brief battle with Corona Virus (COVID-19), SPB succumbed to this deadly disease on Sept 25th, 2020. He is survived by his wife Savithri, daughter Pallavi, and son S. P. B. Charan.