Indian playback singer SP Balasubramaniam died on Friday at Chennai hospital. Balasubramaniam, fondly called SPB was hospitalized on August 5 for Covid-19 a couple of months ago, had been on life support as his health deteriorated in the last few days.
After he was hospitalized with symptoms of Covid-19 a few months ago, he shared is health issues in a Video post on social media Facebook.
Sripathi Panditradhyula Balaubrhamanyam also known as S.P. Balu or S.P.B is a well-known Indian playback singer, actor, dubbing artist who worked mostly in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, and Malayalam. He was born in Nellore district in AP. He at his tender age developed an interest in music. With the intention of becoming an engineer, he enrolled at JNTU College of Engineering Anantapur. He discontinued his studies there due to health issues and joined as Member of the Institution of Engineers in Chennai.
He recorded more than 40,000 songs in 17 Indian languages. He bagged six National Film Awards for singing in four different languages, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi. Besides, he received 25 AP state Nandi Awards for his work in Telugu, other state awards from Tamilnadu and Karnataka.
He garnered one Filmfare Award from Bollywood and six Filmfare Awards South. He received NTR National Award for his contributions towards Indian cinema. He is a recipient of Indian prestigious civilian awards such as Padma Shri in 2001, and Padma Bhushan in 2011 from Indian Govt.
He made his singing debut with Telugu movie Sri Sri Sri Maryada Ramanna. He received his first national award for Telugu movie Shankarabharanam. The songs he sang were all on complete Carnatic ragas. However, he was not trained in Carnatic music, but that never stops him.
The Musician S.P Kothandapani was the one who recognized a singing talent in SP Balasubrahmanyam at Andhra Social and Cultural Society (ASCA). He has given him his first chance to sing in a Telugu movie Sri Sri Sri Maryada Ramanna. He sang songs for all artists right from MGR, NTR, ANR to today’s actors. He worked with several music composers like KV. Mahadevan, V.Kumar, Vijayabaskar, Sham, Ilayaraja, AR Rahman, Deva, Raj-Koti, Manisharma, Devi Sri Prasad, and more.
PM Narendra Modi tweeted saying “Our Cultural world is a lot poorer”. Several actors and actresses, artists, singers, musicians, co-signers, politicians across India have paid final homage to SPB.
Indian President Ram Nath Kovind took to twitter to offer tributes, saying “In the passing of music legend SP Baalasubrahmanyam Indian music has lost one of its most melodious voices.”
Several politicians including Home minister Amit Shah, actors Rajini Kanth, Kamal Hassan, AR Rahman, Chirajivi, Venkatesh, Mahesh Babu, Jr NTR, Bollywood actors Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, singers Latha Mangeshkar, Shreya Goshl paid a final tribute to veteran playback singer SP Balasubrahamanyam.