It was some years ago that I received a call asking me to be a part of a special concert. I was being asked to play with the legendary ‘SPB’, and I was further told that he wanted these segments to be just with me and no other accompanist on stage. I grew up in an era where SPB was perhaps the only singer on every song I loved (with maestro Ilayaraaja being the composer of nearly all of them). For the years that followed, I became a part of his ‘posse’, a dedicated fan group of the person that he was, in addition to the superlative vocalist and performer that he was. And I will say that to know SPB is to become a part of this privileged group that knows of his extraordinary kindness, sense of humour and ability to inspire joy wherever he went. To be a good musician is to be a keen listener to life, he was to remark on many an occasion. And I saw him living it. He was generous to a fault, and an avid participant in the business of life – negotiating tumult and greatness with grace and agility.
In being asked to write about his musical legacy, it is difficult to know where to begin. I find analysis very tough when it comes to singers as prolific as he was (he has recorded nearly 43,000 songs across languages and genres!) as adjectives do not do justice, language often struggling to encompass what can only be transmitted musically. A turn of phrase, a tremor especially affected for a phrase, a bass quiver – and you know that your life is changed forever due to that particular rendition, the gravity and depth he confers that particular moment in a narrative. In India, we tend to turn any retrospective into a hagiography, and I know I am already in that zone.
SPB was transcendental in a way few singers were, but knowing him was also loving his approach to music. He saw it as a part of a whole, as his ‘karma’ towards a greater ‘seva’ to humanity, retreating behind his composers and his music directors rather than enjoy the shine. I feel that it is this quality that endeared him to most of us. We would be discussing Nanda en nila and he would sit like a schoolboy, his face in a reverential trance as he transformed into a young Balu singing for the late, legendary Dakshinamoorthy Sir. He would discuss Kamban emandhan and get palpably excited when discussing MSV and that odd note (the end of the second line is on a different gandharam). He was least aware of the effect he was having on all of us around him, listening in rapt attention as also his vocal acrobatics in providing, on the spot, three or four different sangatis on the same line, as if it is the most natural thing in the world.
So in deciding to write this, I thought I would use five songs of his (I am thrilled to say that I have played these songs with him on stage and on television), as it helps me with the framework for analysis. Each of these songs also varies by genre, stories they fit into and different stages of his musical trajectory. Each of these selections also reflects a different use for the voice, and I believe there is much to be gleaned from observing them carefully.
For instance, in Teertha Karaiyinile (1980, Varumayin Niram Sivappu, MS Viswanathan) It is the gentle and melancholic ballad that is given prime importance. Bharatiyar’s immortal poetry is used to reflect a protagonist pining for a love that is now irredeemably lost, a song of nostalgic pain and hurt. MSV chooses to characterise this with just the voice and a gentle guitar backing, leaving the former to do most of the heavy lifting. And it does with SPB’s muted and controlled emotion, laying emphasis on the words, their enunciation and that tremendous irony in the lyric. In fact, when the song reaches its end the line Nanoruvan mattilum pirivenbadhor naraga tuzhaluvadho(“When it is only me suffering this separation, it is like being tossed into hell”), the ‘holding back’ that he has done in the previous lines suddenly suffuses into a free-flow of emotional release, and he lingers, mid-phrase – to let the listener empathise with the narrative. It breaks the heart, and makes Bharatiyar’s own tribulations well up and coax the tears out of each of us.
In Enakku oru kadhali (1976, Muthaana Muthallavo) we see the serenade, beautifully essayed on screen by Vijayakumar and ‘Thengai’ Srinivasan. With a piano and a violin to keep them company, MSV and SPB (a rare combination for singing) take us through a sweet paean to romance. SPB masters this form once again, and the use of his voice to sculpt the beautiful end-phrase of the pallavi is among the masterpieces in film music literature. The violin mimics the voice, and the voice the violin in a pas-de-deux between these two melodic strains, and SPB offers up sangatis that are as evocative as they are wondrous.
I had asked SPB about that turn of phrase and how he decided to craft it that particular way, to which he retreated, in his characteristic style, to the superlative vision of MSV. He went on to remark that MSV made him practice that phrase multiple times, and was quite strict about it. We shall now never know what actually transpired, but we have this delightful melody to savour.
In rendering the classical, such as in Manasa sancharare, Sankarabharanamu or Dorakkuna, I have often been told by purists that this would not pass muster in a classical concert. The heaviness of SPB’s bass notes, and the relative lightness in the uccha sthayis are not desirable, I would be told. But we must remember that these were rendered for film. Indeed, in Naa jeevadhara in Thyagayya (1981, Telugu, KV Mahadevan), the architectonics of the first and second sangatis of the pallavi line are so redolent of the Lalgudi style of rendition. When I referred to this in conversation, he replied that the Lalgudi rendition was his gold standard to practice this, and he ended the comment by his usual self-effacing apology when it comes to the classical. “Unlike you all, I am not classically trained”, he would often remark. I often wonder if humility is the true hallmark of greatness, because if so, SPB was a great testament to that notion. Purists’ opinion aside, SPB displayed tremendous reverence for the classical, often referring to the late M. Balamuralikrishna and often his ‘Anna’, K J Yesudas as his exemplars and teachers.
The narrative is important, as is the narrator, he once said: The story is paramount, and all craftspeople in service of that story, he would add. He would become the ‘voice’ of the protagonist, and his rendition the storyline. It was a different era to grow up in music, and he took his cues from the innumerable music directors he worked for across the country. These were times when as a highly sought after performer, he would record four to five songs in a day! To think that he would still take the time to sit down and listen to the story, to the implicit directions of his composers, and become the character is tough to believe in a digital era where singer-celebrities often eclipse the context they represent.
And yet the SPB I knew was not a man who placed undue emphasis on ‘voice management’ or ‘silences before concerts’. He would be joking in the greenroom, regaling us with some story or the other, and be a perfect marvel minutes later when curtains opened. And he would be able to hold the stage for hours afterwards, getting better with the passing hours! He loved his food, his indulgences and his life, it would always seem.
But it is perhaps in the lyrical nocturne that SPB becomes an indelible part of our lives. In Nilave Vaa and Kanmaniye kadhal enbadhu and countless others, SPB carries the romance in his phrasing, imbuing phrases with so much tenderness that the listener picturises themselves in the narrative.
The relegation to the self towards serving others, reverence to one’s teachers and colleagues, taking it ‘easy’ and taking things in one’s stride, to be an avid listener and above all, to be compassionate – my list can go on. These are lessons for all of us.
These are the songs of our lives, and these are the melodies of our own youth and romances. In his passing, I do not believe that we have lost a great singer. I believe we have lost the soundtracks to our lives.
ANIL SRINIVASAN is a well-known pianist and respected music educator. He has also worked closely with the late SPB.