Vinyl ("LP" record) covers speak about IR (Pictures & Details) - Thamizh

Interesting to see musicalaya hosting four pictures for the album of a relatively less known movie (unknown to me until the songs got featured in the hub a couple of years back)...

oru iravu oru paRavai (looking at the name of the crew, one wonders if this happened to be a Telugu-dubbing product)...

The first movie that IR composed for KBR as a director was inRu pOy nALai vA.

Unfortunately, our source site does not have the cover. If and when we get from other sources, we'll look at that mEri pyAri dil ki rANi.

For now, let's host the next one from the KBR-IR combo - vidiyum varai kAththiru.

The movie where KBR tried to do a role different from what he was then known-for, a new "bad-guy" avatar. That didn't do that well in the BO and he had to switch back to his 'anudhAbam-seeking-appAvi' kind of roles again, to strike it big.

VVK had two nice songs, pEsu en anbE (SPB/SPS/Sasireka) & neengAtha eNNam onRu (MV/SJ)...





To me, the movie was kind of OK...but the ending was cliche

ok, all the four remaining movies from 1981 whose pics are available are Kamal's

These are in addition to the two we've already posted (meeNdum K & k meenkaL) Add 'ellAm inba mayam' whose cover is not in our source site, there had been at least SEVEN Kamal movies with rAsA in just that year!

Could it be some sort of a record for a Hero / MD combo in a year?

We know very well that 'sollachcholla enna perumai' of EIM made into the 'finders keepers' thingy and was also a big fav with youtube viewers in the west (much before the kolaveRi rage).

Let's now look at the cover of the album from which another Kamal song found favor with 'finders keepers', that 'nAn dhAngoppandA'!

Ram Latchuman...there seems to be two disk covers that these people had access to and thus four pictures for us (warning : being a Devar films movie, you'll see yAnai having as much or more prominence than hero):

The next one is tik-tik-tik, BR movie that got more famous for the bikini photo than anything else those days.

I remember posting about my cousin talking to an "assistant director" of this movie who sat next to him in an omni bus travel around the time this movie was getting made, calling IR the 'laddu-master' (or a similar term, laddoos being the metaphors for his songs).

He also remarked that IR was given an advance check of Rs 65000 (a huge sum in 1981) for this movie. I promptly boasted about that number with my +2 classmates!  And, a HCMSVF promptly replied "MSV always get 1 lac as advance"  

Anyways, no bikini in the vinyl cover...however, it helps to prove my earlier statement in the IR-SPB thread that 'idhu oru nilAkkAlam' got penned by VM (and so was poo malarndhida).

Of course 'nEtRu indha nEram', sung by w/o Rajini for a Kamal movie, was written by kavingar!

Shankarlal (or Sankarlal) was a T N Balu movie (who earlier made uyarndhavarkaL & sattam en kaiyil with Kamal).

Per wikipedia, the movie got completed by Kamal as T N Balu died midway...and can technically be called his first directorial venture - ahead of his alleged ghost activities.

I always thought that the movie got MD'ed by both IR & GA in parts (i.e. like kaNNil theriyum kathaikaL...one doing pre-interval and another post or something like that).

Now, from the album cover, it does not seem that way

There are two possibilities :

1. My new theory:

IR composed iLangiLiyE (the only song credited to him in the vinyl cover, all others are credited to his anujan) and then something happened (say, for e.g. the director / producer got sick and the project was on limbo...when the financiers pressurised the family, Kamal stepped into help and finished the movie...but IR was too busy / no dates available and GA got roped in).

2. Raja toyed with the idea of a "duo" composer

This is what the disk company wants us to believe, placing a pic where IR-GA are together. I don't subscribe to the view that the pic was when they were composing together It must have been when GA was given some mettu to write lyrics (or given notes to play / work with the orchestra).

Anyways, you are all free to guess with these four pictures (two disks, one the initial one and another when it came as a combo with another):









In addition, I have posted another wild theory related to iLangiLiyE in the hub sometime back and no one commented on it...so, trying it here again

The prelude of this song is used in the prelude of 'hum banE tum banE ek dujE kE liyE' that got recorded later...it was possibly Kamal's influence to the KB-LP gumbal to utilize his recent IR-toy

The last one for the year - rAjA pArvai

Sujatha wrote a nice article in kumudam on the panthuvarALi instrumental piece, starting with the line 'Kamaludan oru mAlai nEram'...I still remember that piece increasing my Aval to listen to the instrumental

Anyways, the disk cover available in that site does not give us any additional info that we don't know about this album / movie.

The only funny thing about this pic is it misses the lyric writer of the most popular song of the album - andhi mazhai. VM had a lot of media attention those days when the songs arrived, giving explanation as to why "indhiran thOttaththu mundhiri" and such. (OTOH, years later rAsA ridiculed the song asking how can a blind fellow sing about seeing the girl's face in every drop of rain).

Anyways, both the other lyricists - Kavingar for 'azhagE azhagu dEvadhai' & GA for 'vizhiyOraththukkanavum' - are seen here in the pictures available to us!

Start 1982, the year when EchO records got launched and started getting featured on movie title cards.

Let's start with one "bayamuRuththal" cover where Suhasini appears in dance costume

BTW, while many of us were critical of the quality and packaging of EchO cassettes, we must admit that their vinyl covers were some kind of 'maRu malarchchi' to that industry! Very nice and refreshing with their picture quality!

AgAya gangai (director Manobala) cover (mu Mehta appearing in this thread for the first time):

oru rAgam pAdalOdu...what an Anandha rAgam!

The first disk to have a rare kind of song - a KJY-IR duet (kadalOram kadalOram)...

Sivakumar-Radha acted in this BO disaster that had such evergreen numbers...

The director Bharani was an artist and was doing artwork for movies (I've seen many posters, newspaper ads and such material with his signature those days)

The song 'kAviriyE kAviriyE' is such an enjoyable number from 'archanaippookkaL' and one of my favourites at the time of arrival. Not a big hit song but so soothing with its "riverside" effect...nothing else was talked about this movie those days (and now)...

In the "anything about IR on the net" thread, we recently got treated with a lovely youtube...of jaiganesh's child playing on key board a multiple-avatAr-rAsA-song!

While 'thumbi vA' (from Malayalam film OLangaL) happened to be the most popular number out of all those avatArs, there happened to be its first TFM avatar in a Vijayakanth movie Auto Raja - 'sangaththil pAdAtha kavithai' (IR-SJ).

Let's look at the cover of Auto Raja, which is quite unique. The movie's MDs were Shankar-Ganesh and they composed all songs except the sangaththil number (and possibly did the re-recording). The producer (or director) managed to get one song from rAsA and happily featured his picture on this cover

Director Mahendran's run of failures continued with 'azhagiya kaNNE'. (I had the misfortune of watching this movie in theater, after magazines raised the expectations writing about this as an inspired from 'the oman' etc. Despite having a lot of stars, like Baby Anju, movie was extremely boring).

Songs too were quite average, both in listening pleasure and hit status (i.e. by IR standards)...out of them, 'chinnachchinnakkaNgaL reNdu' was my pick those days.

I'm surprised to see four pictures for a not-so-famous 'echchil iravukaL'. The movie done by pErAsiriyar A.S.Prakasam. The shiny cover for the disk could be due to the fact that Balu Mahendra did the camera work for this film and possibly the pictures were impressive. (Polydor label )

IIRC, it was a movie about pichchaikkArarkaL and one of them was played by Pratap Pothen konjamAvathu nambuRa mAthiri irukka vENdAmA sArE? BTW, the lead actress looks like 'oru thalai rAgam' heroine...correctA?

Anyways, here are pictures for the movie that had 'poomEla veesum poongAththE, en mEl veesa mAttAyA?' (a melody somewhat similar to 'mazhaikkAla mEgam onRu maNi oonjal Adiyadhu' that came a little later bearing GA's name in the prEmAbhishEkam remake)...

ok, one more cover (possibly the last one for this week)...

A very acclaimed album (i.e. by HCIRFs)!

Another movie with Pratap Pothen as Ezhai / kudisai dweller etc (but with jeans IIRC).

Easily one of the best albums of IR's career (though not recognized as such at the time of arrival or for years...internet somewhat helped showcase this in the deserved light).

eera vizhikkAviyangaL!

Two landmark movies got released in the early part of 1982.

one, moonRAm piRai - Kavingar's last song 'kaNNE kalaimAnE', NA for Kamal, one of the best performances of Sridevi, one of the all-time-great movies of BM / TF, a very competent score by IR with that path-breaking 'poongAtRu pudhidhAnadhu'.

Now, this vinyl cover somewhat confuses me

All along, I was thinking that poongARRu was by VM. This says kavingar Howver, the confusion is because it lists the track incorrectly ('poongAtRu thAlAttudhu') Someone please confirm me if they heard from elsewhere too that the song was written by kavingar only and not VM!

The disk has only four songs ('vAnengum thanga viNmeenkaL' is not listed). With 'putham pudhukkAlai' and 'en iniya pon nilAvE' getting credited to Gangai Amaran, some of the 'iyaRkai ezhil' songs that I've earlier attributed to VM had gone. With 'poongARRu pudhidhAnadhu' going kavingar's way, I'm not sure whether I can assertively say 'vAnil oru deepAvaLi' was by VM

Now I need some document to believe that...

Here are the pictures (Kamal & Sridevi)...

Two, payaNangaL mudivadhillai! A musical with silver jubilee success (i.e. in Gaitey Singarathope Trichy...may be golden in Madras).

First movie that had IR's name above the movie's title on posters (that "Ilayarajavin innisai mazhayil" thingy).

No confusions here regarding lyricists

rAga deepam & maNiyOsai kEttu : Muthulingam

iLayanilA, thOgai iLamayil & sAlaiyOram : VM

vaigaraiyil & Ey AththA : GA

app, your Prathap Pothen remarks

If not mistaken, only the Deepavali song (mundram pirai) was by VM. We had a cassette back then, also didn't feature that song.

Anyway, keep it going, and thanks.

nanRi groucho on the moonRam piRai song confirmation!

While it does not take anything away from the tremendous skills of VM w.r.t. handling Thamizh vocabulary in poetry, this thread is fast reducing the number of GREAT IR songs that I've hitherto accounted for VM

Of course it was all due to my own ignorance and not VM's fault but this diminishing just makes me think why the media made (and continues to make) such a big noise over the break-up of IR & VM...

'putham puthukkAlai' & 'en iniya pon nilAvE' gone (GA)

'poongARRu pudhidhAnadhu' gone (KD)

Three IR biggies that are in my most-fav list are no longer burdened with the VM-tag

Time to post two biggie movies that got released on the same day in 1982 (such has become a thing of the past now - the industry is so "simplified" nowadays - that a biggie star gets no competition, releases in 100's of theaters simultaneously and try to get investment back within a week regardless of the movie being good or bad)...

sakala kalA vallavan (iLamai idhO idhO / nilA kAyudhu / nEththu rAththiri / katta vaNdi)

Kamal / ambi chEchi / AVM / vAlee...

engEyO kEtta kural - a very similar team

Rajini / ambi chEchi / rAdhA chechi / SPM / PA

Interestingly Kamal, who was known for drama did masAlA and Rajini did drama at this point of time. SKV had huge BO success while EKK a modest run. OTOH, Rajini got some brownie points from critics in the acting department (I'm yet to watch this movie)...

Just noticed the "mottai" style picture of rAsA on this cover...so, this year marked his departure from bell-bottom / cooling glass to rudhrAtcham...

IR must have personally considered kAdhal Oviyam to be a landmark. There's a big picture of him teaching BR guitar. And the EchO company had a nice sleeve around the vinyl, with 5 pictures for us!

VM has penned all songs except 'kuyilE kuyilE' which was by PA. Similarly, SPB sang in all (male) songs except poojaikkAga which was DC.

The lead pair had interesting "real" names - Kannan & Radha (I put "real" within quotes because the original name of Radha was Udhayachandrika. Also, not sure if Kannan was the original name of the intro-hero but something given by BR. Earlier BR had changed Murali s/o Muthuraman into Karthik for alaigaL Oyvathillai. And he was notorious for changing the names of most heroines to suit his 'first letter R' sentiment -Radhika / Rathi / Rohini / Radha / Revathy / Ranjani / Ranjitha...In any case, these two were known by these names in the field / media).

Unfortunately, like many movies that had "blind-musical-as-hero", this too was a BO disaster.

Anyone who looks at the list of albums by IR for this 1982 can understand why SPB keeps calling him 'rAtchashan'

One more monster like EVK, KO...NN (hosting the original NEPV besides pani vizhum malarvanam).

All songs were penned by VM. The album cover shows very clearly the new avatar of IR (white jibbA, ruthrAtcha mAlai, mottai etc). musicalaya has only 2 pictures and definitely misses at least one more sheet of the wrapper that had the song listing.

I was dying to see that because my collegemate copied a number of those instrumental tracks from this disk in a cassette and that cassette was one of my all-time-fav during college days. (tik-tik-tik BGM pieces, ullAsappaRavaikaL title music etc)

All of us are aware of the IR-MSV combo for mellath thiRandhadhu kadhavu - MTK - that happened in 1986. Interestingly, years before, MSV sang in the music of rAsA And, that vinyl cover has a MSV-IR picture. thAi MookAmbikai was the movie and one song had MSV, BMK & seerkAzhi singing together.

Then there was another that had three female voices - isaiyarasi ennALum nAnE. The song many contestants try nowadays on TV competitions. Ofcourse, the famous 'janani janani' with which IR started his recent stage concerts is from this movie too.

It's not that all songs were of such "devotional" genre. It also had 'seenaththup pattumEni iLanchittu mEni' duet & 'pasikku sORum illE' folk number, those too got played regularly on radio those days.

There should have been two (or more) versions of 'thanikkAttu rAjA' disks. musicalaya has two.

The sandhanakkARRE & rAsAvE onna nAn are evergreen favourites.

Rajini-Sridevi-Jaishankar-Sripriya. Rajini gets to romance two girls in this film.

One of the finest folk album of IR from the year 1982 when he was strongly into classical / western genres - "thooRal ninnu pOchchu".

All the songs were patti-thotti hits ('En sOga kathaiyakkELu' is a phrase getting used even now And that happened to be a song penned by GA).

5 lovely songs and each one got written by a different lyricist. VM has thangachchangili, Muthulingam did the bhoopALam isaikkum, vAli played around with 'thAlAtta nAn poRandhEn' and ErikkaraippoongARRE was by Chidambaranathan (not much known in the IR era).

Intro movie of Sulakshana, a good actress, who later married & divorced MSV's son.

Nambiar did a nice role in this movie

One more disaster from director Mahendran - metti

Of course, it had some nice gems from IR. Radhika / Sarathbabu didn't evoke any response from the audience. I remember watching this movie and don't remember what it was all about