SPB spilt tea on Lata, thought career was over

Mumbai was initially sceptical about his accent, and after a couple of hits, found it charming

S P (Sripathi Panditaradhyula) Balasubrahmanyam got his Hindi break in 1981 only because producer L V Prasad wanted his voice for Tamil hero Kamal Haasan in ‘Ek Duuje Ke Liye’ (EDKL).

Laxmikant-Pyarelal were not keen on SPB after an audition, humbly given by the singer despite a track record of 14 years in the profession, because of his accent. Prasad convinced them that since the hero was a South Indian, SPB’s diction could be explained.

Eventually, L-P were so besotted with SPB that they soon recorded songs with him for ‘Ek Hi Bhool’, ‘Raaste Pyar Ke’, ‘Andhaa Kaanoon’ and other films. They would go on to describe SPB as a “true singer” to musical aspirants.

A nervous SPB spilt his tea over Lata Mangeshkar’s white saree at the recording of EDKL’s first song, ‘Tere mere beech mein’, and feared that his Hindi career was over before it began. But she laughed it off, blessed him and told him to look at it as a good omen.

SPB won the National award for the solo version of the song. And earlier in the same year, he scored the background music for ‘Hum Paanch’ (with songs by L-P) in Chennai, as busy director Bapu could not be in Mumbai.

Later, SPB recorded the BGM for
L-P’s ‘Nache Mayuri’, a remake of the Telugu ‘Mayuri’ with his music. His background theme song ‘Pag Padam’ was retained with Hindi lyrics. SPB was never classically trained, but it won the Sur-Singar award for the best classical film song of that year, and since he was not separately credited (as per convention then), L-P accepted the award. SPB laughed this off, saying L-P were his mentors.

Despite also singing for R D Burman, Bappi Lahiri and others, SPB’s Hindi career took off only after ‘Maine Pyar Kiya’ (1989), as the first voice of emerging superstar Salman Khan. He explained his success thus: “This was because my voice was now identified with a young Mumbai heartthrob, Salman Khan.”

In the early 1990s, SPB used to divide his time equally between Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai, sometimes recording eight songs every day he was in the city. In this phase, his maximum songs were for Salman Khan (‘Hum Aapke Hain Kaun’, ‘Saajan’, ‘Love’, ‘Andaz Apna Apna’ and others) and for composers Anand-Milind and Raamlaxman. His tracks were kept ready, but he missed ‘live’ recordings with legends like Lata Mangeshkar, as in ‘EDKL’.

SPB was always an avid listener of Hindi songs (his second language in school) and loved the songs of S D Burman, Madan Mohan, Roshan, Khayyam and Jaidev in particular. His singing idol remained Mohammed Rafi because of his range and mastery over expression.

His last Hindi song was for Shah Rukh Khan in ‘Chennai Express’ (2013). Though snatches can be heard in the background score, it was replaced in the end titles with ‘Lungi Dance’.

Sachin-Jigar, during an interview, had said they were to use him for a song in ‘ABCD 2’ (2015). However, S-J were not available for comment on whether this happened or if his voice was dubbed over in the current, vitiated scenario of Hindi film music.

Earlier this year, this writer had messaged SPB about how his name featured among the singers in the credit titles of ‘Mahaan’ (1983), though he had not sung in the film. On July 31, 2020, SPB sent a reply, saying R D Burman had requested him to do some vocals for the background score and “With love and respect, I accepted”.

That was the kind of gem SPB was.