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It’s an uphill task to satisfy Raja, he had said. In interviews, he had fondly recollected the stories of how some of the greatest hits were born: the songs that Raja the taskmaster had forced him to sing despite his lack of self-confidence after hearing the tune and the composer’s expectations. But working together in over 2,000 songs, making a large number of the all-time greats? That’s a one-of-its-kind achievement in the music scene worldwide. Raveendran used to say that he wouldn’t have composed songs if he didn’t have Yesudas to sing them. In Malayalam, Raveendran had always worked with Yesudas and Chithra. Ilayaraja’s longtime friend R D Burman had composed many beautiful songs with Kishore Kumar in the ’60s and ’70s. All composers had their favourite singers. It’s not that we did not have other successful combos. Raja responded saying he will record a song with him the next morning. Legend has it that SPB bumped into Raja in a recording studio and told him that he was also a singer and why is he not being called to sing any of his compositions. SPB sang in many films after making his Tamil debut by singing the evergreen duet Iyarkai Ennum Ilayakanni with P Susheela for composer M S Viswanathan in Shanti Nilayam. However, it did not happen when Ilayaraja composed for Annakkili or for the next few movies.

When the friend of a famous singer makes his debut as music director, you would expect both to come together. True friends need not be physically close and they don’t need long conversations. SPB said Raja need not write down anything, he had every detail required in his brain, neatly organised.

Ilayaraja news how to#

As a proud friend, SPB had said that he is amazed and proud that his friend who did not know how to write notations worked so hard and became a maestro whom the world respects. SPB found his mentor in films soon enough and started singing playback, but Raja had to wait longer for his film debut. Ilayaraja played the harmonium and Amaran played the guitar to the popular film songs sung by SPB. Balu, the only one from outside the Paavalar family, was the ‘elder brother’ in the group who would fetch Ilayaraja from his music class on his scooter for concerts. The ‘Paavalar Brothers Orchestra’ that young Balu had organised with Ilayaraja and his brothers Gangai Amaran and Daniel Bhaskar began it all. The engineer-aspirant who turned to music out of passion and to help his father financially with the 150 or 200 that a recorded song could fetch him, never imagined such a long run. SPB broke into the music scene when TM Soundarrajan and PB Sreenivas ruled the Tamil music scene and Ghantasala dominated the Telugu industry.