Jukebox - what's playing?

The first voice I grew up and warmed up with when I was a kid is Shri P B Srinivas. Another reason being my uncle. He is a big fan of Hemant Kumar, Talat Mahmood and P B Srinivas singing. If you hear, their voices would be quite similar and soft which is also a reason for my uncle's liking. Whenever we used to visit his home, their songs would only be continuously played without fail. That's also the main reason I developed a strong liking in P B Srinivas songs and chose to sing his songs during my college farwell and also in my marriage. I get a gentle breezy feeling whenever I listened to/sing his songs. Any stress would be immediately cleared when I listen to his songs. I attribute my liking towards PBS songs to my uncle. I had recorded two T-90 cassettes exclusively for PBS songs which I used to listen very often then.

When TMS and P Susheela were ruling, PBS had his own path of melodies. He had his own cozy fans, not staunch like former fans. How could we describe his ever adorable inbam pongum veNNilaa veesuthE (from Veerapaandiya kattabomman composed beautifully by G Ramanathan)? NaaLaam naaLaam thirunaaLaam is by far one of my most favorite duet of all times. And that anubavam puthumai, unga ponnnaana kaigaL puNNaagalama and maadi meLE all songs from Kaadhalikka nEramillai briskly composed by V-R. No one can miss his indha mandraththil Odi varum, thaamarai KaNNangal, rOja malarE raajakumari, kaalangaLil avaL vasantham, valarntha kathai maranthu vittaal keLada kaNNa, mounamE paarvaiyaal, oruththi oruvanai ninaiththuvittaal and countless divine gems not just in thamizh, but also in Kannada, Telugu and malayalam. The gentle shades and colors PBS brought out in each of these compositions is unconquerable.

Time goes off in a jiff, but the voice of these singers stay beyond the time machine. It's time to rewind all his classics and remember him for the wonderful moments he given us. His passing away is a great loss to playback singing and music. May God bless his soul to rest in peace.



manithan enbavan dheivam aagalam
vaari vaari vazhangumpOdhu vaLLalaagalam
vaazhai pOla thannai thanthu thyaagi aagalam
uruhi Odum mezhugu pOla oLiyai veesalam...

Nerd,
I listened only three songs. NenjE ezhu, nEtru avaL and enga pOna raasa, but all three failed on me. I have already expressed nenjE ezhu is not my cup of tea as it has more of a 'we are the world' kind of feel and genre. First of all I don't like we are the world song, so does this one. Also there are more repeating phrases than anything novel. nEtru avaL and enga pOna raasa I cannot classify them as songs, it goes on and on without returning back with no structure at all and could not end the charanams convincingly. Melody lacks depth, it happens so frequently in his songs nowadays (just because of the western pop melody limitations). Another biggest complaint in all of these are there are not much interludes. Also I don't like the way they sang the songs especially nEtru avaL and enga pOna raasa. As if we need to amplify our ears to hear what they are singing, so husky and mushy with lot of air and very stylish to the native lyrics. I don't know why can't they sing openly a pathos song?. Is it a crime? Only good thing about enga pOna raasa is the guitar work which goes as a counter-melody to the main melody. Having said all this, blame it on my taste. Keeping my fingers crossed on the rest 4 songs.