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While exploring the music of Tamil films I was quite surprised to note that there were so many legendary composers , many of whom were well known during their times, but slowly have faded from our memory. All of them may not have been prolific or very successful but made a mark for themselves during their active career. Some had even composed everlasting melodies but remained obscure. While listening to the songs composed by them , I started having the idea of why not trace the journey of Tamil film music from the early pioneers to the later day maestros.
Before I start off, let me confess very honestly-this is not a scholarly work on tracing the history or evolution of music in the Tamil film industry. I am not at all qualified to do that! This is just my own perception based on the songs that I have listened over the years. This is a small tribute to all those music directors , whom I feel contributed in some way or the other to the rich legacy of Tamil film music. This is surely not an exhaustive list and I must have missed out many , which reflects only on my own ignorance or bias and not in any way on their contribution in enriching the music of the last 80 plus years .
With that disclaimer , let me try to take you on an exciting musical journey of half a century , starting from the 1943 to 1992, from the iconic film Sivakavi , to Roja , from the composer Papanasam Sivan to A R Rehman , from singers M.K Thyagaraja Bhagawatar to S P Balasubrahmanyam , from M.S Subbulakshmi to S Janaki , lyricist Papanasam Sivan to Vairamuthu ! Since the music composers involved are around 25 , I can only talk about one of their songs from the hundreds or thousands they had composed . I have also tried to give a brief profile of the music directors only. It would be too large a scope to cover the singers & lyricists in the present blog.
During his short lifespan of about 36 years and cinema life of 10 years, he made lasting fame with films like Devadasu, Ratnamala, Chenchu Lakshmi, Balaraju, Laila Majnu and others.Though not much is known about the teachers from whom he learnt music, it is said that he was a very quick learner and was well versed in playing the harmonium at the age of 14.
He spotted the talent of a young violinist and made him his assistant. This was the legendary T.K Ramamoorthy who would later partner with M.S Vishwanathan and become a legend. He had composed music for around 35 films, in Telugu and Tamil. from 1943 to 1952 , till death snatched him away suddenly at a very young age of 36 years. One of the pioneers to bring a fusion of western and classical music, he had groomed many singers and other music directors like M.K. Thyagaraja Bhagawatar , Ghantasala, MS Vishwanathan, TK Ramamoorthy etc.
பட்டன தட்ட வட்ட ரண்ட தட்டல
இட்டலயம், கப்ப நம்ம பக்கத்தல் வந்தடணம்
Many of us would have heard his famous songs without realizing who had composed them like: Vazhkai yennum odam and Ka Ka in the film Parashakti, Anbale thediya yen arivu chelvam thangam , Azhagiya mithilai nagarinile yaarukku Janaki kathirindhal, Naan oru muttalunge, Indru vandha indha mayakkam yennai yengeyo kondu poguthamma etc.
Although this song was based on some Urdu song , the way Sudarshanam master had arranged the orchestration for this song is amazing considering that it was year 1952! Clarinet, Mandolin, Shehnai, Guitar, Flute all come together in a melodious medley ; note that the song has such a fast tempo and even the minute pauses between the lines are filled with small bits of instruments. That is why such songs remain evergreen even after 70 years. Also, not to forget the excellent prelude and the humming that MS Rajeshwari does with so much of grace.
One of his early epic compositions was for the film Chandralekha , in 1948 , produced by S. S Vasan that had the famous drum-dance sequence. It took almost one year for him to complete the music of that film . Way back in 1942 he had composed the songs in association with M. D. Parthasarathy for the film Nandanar that had more than 30 songs , mostly sung by the legendary Dhandapani Desikar ( Ayye metha kadinam umadhadimai, Yen appan allava, yen thayum allava ). Though his compositions for Tamil films are relatively less ( Telugu films being his major focus), the song that I had selected is quite popular to this day.
A simple song but it has a lilting melody with a pleasing use of mandolin that keeps you engaged though out the song. The prelude of the song also has a nice clarinet . Before PB Sreenivas became the de-facto voice for Gemini Ganesan, it was AM Rajah who rendered many hits for him. This duet is made more special with the fact that it was a rare duet of Rajah and P Leela, the legendary female singer. P Leela was a classical music trained and an established singer in the Malayalam films , also had a great innings in the Tamil & Telugu films. Many would not be aware that apart from being a play back singer , she was also an accomplished Carnatic classical singer.
This is one song that sounds so good in all the three languages it was composed: Thesulavude then malarale in Tamil by Ghantasala & P Susheela, Hayee hayyega aamane sake in Telugu by Ghantasala & Jikki and Kuhu kuhu bole koyaliya in Hindi by Mohammad Rafi & Lata Mangeshkar. It is a raagamalika composed so beautifully by Adi Narayan Rao in Sohini ( Hamsanandi), Bahaar, Jaunpuri and Yaman ( Yaman Kalyani). It is said that Rafi initially had requested that Ghantasala himself should sing the Hindi version as well after hearing the original Telugu version. Being the humble person that he was , he felt he may not do full justice to the song that had intricate Carnatic music base. But due to the language constraint ultimately, he agreed to sing. Though I am personally a great fan of Rafi, if we listen to the versions sung by Ghantasala , one can understand why Rafi initially had apprehensions. Superb rendition by both Ghantasala , Jikki & P Susheela in Telugu and Tamil versions.
Ghantasala had also participated in the Quit India Movement of 1942, for which he was arrested and imprisoned for 18 months. After his release , he met Samudrala Sr., who advised him to try his luck in the film industry as a singer.
In the year 1952 he got the chance to compose for a Malayalam film Athmasanthi and was also dubbed in Tamil under the same title. Papa also composed music for many Sinhalese films. As a Nilaya Vidwan of AIR from 1946, Papa accompanied the violin for many great classical vocalists. He composed music for many devotional albums with Seerkazhi Govindarajan . The song Chinnanjiru Penn Pole dedicated to the Goddess Abirami is notable. Papa scored music for the album Abirami Andhaadhi. Papa has also served as the Principal of Madras Music College.
T. R. Ramanna and Papa were classmates in Thanjavur and when the former was in the midst of the making of the film Arunagirinathar, the music director G. Ramanathan fell ill. It was TR Papa who completed the rest of the songs.
There , the young TGL learnt many instruments like harmonium, mandolin , guitar etc and assisted many music composers like T.A Kalyanam, R Sudarshanam & CR Subbaraman. He had even bought an electric guitar from London and had played many instruments for veteran music directors G Ramanathan, SV Venkataraman and KV Mahadevan.TR Mahalingam the noted singer had produced few films and he was the one who gave the chance to TGL to score independently for the film Mohana Sundaram in 1951. Later on, another famous film producer-director BR Panthulu started giving opportunities to TGL . Among the many films they worked together, Sabash Meena and Thanga Malai Ragasiyam had great songs.
While searching for songs composed by TG Lingappa, I came across this gem of a song , which I heard after many decades. It is really sad that the male singer of this duet is almost totally forgotten -T.A Mothi. I tried my best to gather some information about him but surprisingly there is nothing much available in the Internet about him. Long back I had listened to some of his songs that were for the 1956 film Vaana Ratham that was a Tamil dubbed version of the famous Naushad musical Uran Khatola. The songs were set to the original Hindi tune with TA Mothi singing the songs that were rendered by Rafi in the Hindi version. Recently in the YouTube channel Quarantine from reality, I happened to hear this song composed by TG Lingappa and understood that TA Mothi had sung just for a handful of Tamil films. The song selected here shows what a great singer he was-it is really a pity that we know so little about him. The classical touch in this song reveals his mastery.
He joined the Baratha Gana Saba, a drama troupe and played harmonium at the age of 18. Then he joined the V. A. Chellappa Drama company, and sang playback and played harmonium. In 1932, he first played musical instrument for a Tamil film called Galavarishi which was produced in Bombay.
In 1938 GR became the music director for the film Sathyaseelan produced by M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar in Bombay followed by the Vipranarayana (old). He went on to score the music for films that were subsequently produced in Madras like Bookailash, followed by Parasuraman and Bhoologa Rambai (old). He was also a resident music director for the Modern Theatres since the beginning ( K. V. Mahadevan had also did few films for them).
GR bought out the best from his singers and gave many career- best songs for them. T. M. Soundararajan said that if one could sing to the satisfaction and the tune of GR that singer could easily sing for the tune of any music director.
It may surprise many readers to see this name in a blog about Tamil music composers. It was only a few years back that I came to know that this very famous composer of Hindi films songs ( he was among the top most five legends of Hindi film music world, along with Naushad, Shankar-Jaikishan, S.D Burman & O.P Nayyar) started his career with Tamil films Jayakodi ( 1940) and Vana Mohini ( 1941), which were directed by Bhagwan Dada, the noted Marathi & Hindi actor.
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