SPB – The King Of Infinite Raagas Ascended To Heaven

With legendary SP Balasubramaniam’s demise, the phrase ‘End of Era’ can be aptly inculcated and perhaps, no one else would ever be ready to take the helm. SPB is the Era distinguished with his defining qualities and will for eternity be remembered for his historical singing. And today, this historic significance has come to an end.

When someone you admire or worship dies, we eventually learn to live without them. But, this general statement would probably never be applied in SPB’s case. With a heavy heart, music lovers have to accept the fact that we bleed internally with grief until the music lives on the earth. SPB fades only when the music fades!

SPB was never a Carnatic trained singer. But, he sang those notations like a dream. It is applaudable that SPB was inherited with all the 72 ragas in Carnatic music, and to much surprise, he got the inborn freedom to improvise any given song. His genres like devotional, romance, melody, melancholy, happiness, and various forms have only been piling his ability to deal with heavy classical ragas with a pinch of versatility. This amazing man is not the most beloved and prolific singers down in South but he also had the distinction of working across 16 languages, recording over 40K songs.

Late SPB has rendered Nenoka Prema Pipasini, Jabili Kosam, Maate Mantramu, Mata rain Mounam idi, Keeravani Chilakala, Ye divi lo virisina, Ravi Varma ke andani and many such classic songs more accurately and intensely than we could ever imagine, That is the power of his technicalities in singing. Shruti, Swaram, Raagam, Taalam, and Aalapana are his natural talents. His defining characteristics include singing for an old man’s role to a teenager to a playboy enjoying in a pub. His voice is enticingly flexible that he can mimic the voice of a comedian and also the hero. And him being the best in every aspect makes him the most invincible and greatest singer of Indian cinema ever!

Dear, SPB, you are alive in our hearts and we mean it! Thank you for the magic you created all these years.

— Team Gulte.