One among the greatest playback singers ever of Indian cinema, Sripathi Panditaradhyula Balasubrahmanyam, fondly known as
SP Balasubrahmanyam
has breathed his last at a private hospital in Chennai on Friday afternoon. In early August, the 74-year-old was hospitalised after testing positive for
COVID-19
with ‘very mild symptoms’. However, his health condition deteriorated further in the next few weeks and was kept on ECMO and other life support measures. Just when it looked like
SPB was making steady progress towards betterment, his condition turned ‘extremely critical’ in the last 24 hours and eventually, he passed away at 1:04 PM.
Celebrities, politicians and common folks from all walks of life have been pouring their condolences on social media and SPB has certainly left crores of his fans in dismay. In an illustrious career spanning for over five decades, the Nellore-born talent has given innumerable musical hits in 15 languages including Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi and Kannada among others. To specify in numbers, Balu has crooned over 40000 songs in Indian cinema and is revered by fans across age groups for his unparalleled contribution to the musical landscape without even receiving a formal education in it.
Besides singing, SPB donned multiple hats of an actor, producer, music director and dubbing artist. From being honoured in the
Guinness World Records for recording the most number of songs (calendar year) to breaking the Madrasi mould in Bollywood, the veteran singer has done it all and today, he is a proud recipient of highest civilian awards like Padmashri and
Padma Bhushan from the Government of India.
From the mid-60s till late 2000s, almost every South film had an SPB song and especially during the 80s to 90s, there was a horde of films in which all the numbers were sung by Balu himself. The multifaceted singer who got his first break with the 1966 Telugu film ‘Sri Sri Sri Maryada Ramanna’ counts K Viswanath’s epic classic ‘Sankarabharanam’ and the 1981 Bollywood hit ‘Ek Duje Ke Liye’ as the two turning points of his career.
As a tribute to the greatest
playback singer
of South cinema, let’s remember SP Balasubrahmanyam by checking into some of his old pictures with legends like Ghantasala, MS Viswanathan, P Susheela, KV Mahadevan, RD Burman and other yesteryear greats of Indian music.
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