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S P Balasbrahmanyam would have been enthralling us more today with his unique voice had the cruel COVID-19 not taken him away from us. This is a kind of loss that the Indian music industry will never recover from. He was a record holder for singing maximum songs in a day.
SPB’s implacable humanity will always be among the top things that defined his glorious legacy.
On his birth anniversary, we bring to you some of the top sayings quoted by the legend himself.
- In India, nobody really talks about works of art; they always talk about the appreciation of art. You buy this for 3,000 rupees, it’ll become 30,000 in two months.
- “But, when I look back, I feel I could have sung better. I wonder how I got so many chances. I am not saying this out of humility. It’s a million-dollar question that will haunt me for as long as I live.”
- They compose a song and later ask a singer to come and sing it – not keeping in mind the singer’s unique timbre, texture or range.”
- “I think I have an edge over other musicians there — I am a good actor. I can emote very well physically and my ability to emote with voice is only an extension of that. My friends tell me I should have taken acting more seriously, but how many things does one take seriously.”
- “There is no perfect musician anyway. There are only very good musicians who make fewer mistakes.”
- “As a teenager, I dreamt of becoming an engineer. One day Janaki amma heard me and felt I was good. She said that I consider taking up singing. I met a few music directors, but nothing happened. There were illustrious seniors around at that time. A few years later, I won a competition and got my break in the Telugu industry.”
- People gave me an opportunity and I had the strength to work for it, and I did work for it.
- Half of me was confident but half of me was still skeptic, However, here I am and I think i’ll still last another four to five years in the industry. I’m still very really happy about it.
- I like my father for educating me and I like my mother for feeding me. Similarly, I love different music directors for very different things. Each has their own way of composing songs, and as long as I enjoy the song, I will sing for them.
- I don’t know the ABCD of the theory of music. I don’t know how to write notations even now. I never went to anybody to learn music. But I went to everybody to learn music — by listening to so many people!
The legendary singer, who died last September from a coronavirus infection, has left behind a massive trove of timeless songs for his fans. To many, he is the music itself, a man who sang more than 40,000 songs in 16 languages.