Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan - The passing of a Violin Maestro

[selvakumar]

Violinnu nenachu enakku therinja orae nabar ivar thaan.. May his soul rest in peace

[madhu]

May his soul rest in peace

[app_engine]

Heartfelt condolences!

Phenomenal talent in violin...will be missed by all ThamizharkaL

[Sureshs65]

He used to be a major draw in concerts that were organized in Vadapalani temple. This was during the summer months long time back. The concert would start a bit late in the evening and would go on to the wee hours of the morning. The crowd would be sitting there patiently listening to him and waiting for him to play their favorites like 'Marudamalai Mamaniye', Magudi etc. He used to interact with the audience well and though it was open air sitting, the atmosphere was one of a chamber concert. The audience could connect easily with the artist and Kunnakudi encouraged such participation. Madurai Somu was also a major draw here.

May his soul rest in peace.

[Bhoori]

In hindsight, I should have moved my post on kunnakkudi - http://awardakodukkaranga.wordpress....3009;-வ/ - here. Is there a consolidated list of Kunnakkudi movies, songs etc. somewhere in these pages?

[karthik_sa2]

RIP

[RC]

What a great talent! May his soul rest in peace!

[yvsmani]

I had the chance to witness his music concert 2 years back at delhi and after playing carnatic music, he started blending around 50 cine songs and played continuously without break for around 15 minutes.
Great talent.

[NOV]

A Tribute to Sri Kunnakudi Vaidhyanathan
Pookadaikku Vilambaram Edhukku?

(based on an interview to Malaysian radio almost 10 years ago, and from figments of memory of yonder days.)

playing in the background:

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Sri Kunnakudi Vaidhyanathan was born in the temple town of Kunnakudi on 2 March 1935 to Ramaswamy-Meenakshi thambadhigal, in a family reknown for music.

He was initially made fun by his family members as he was not keen on music quite unlike the rest of his relatives. That came to a sudden change when a scheduled violinist didn't turn up for a katchEri by his father, who then publicly appointed Sri Kunnakudi as his next violinist!

Folk tale: When he was a young boy, a man appeared and slapped Sri Kunnakudi for using the vibuthi wrongly. He then showed him the correct way of applying it. When Sri Kunnakudi returned to the scene with his father, the man was missing and Sri Kunnakudi belives that the man was none other than Lord Murugan himself! Since then, Sri Kunnakudi had always spotted his trademark vibuthi.

As they say, the rest was history and Sri Kunnakudi became synonymous with violin, which until then was just a pakka vaaththiyam (thunai isai karuvi). Sri Kunnakudi was observing how the veenai, pullangkuzhal vidhwans were giving katcheris playing solo and decided to do the same with violin. Due to his persistence and excellence, violin became accepted as a main instrument in concert.

A joke: Sri Kunnakudi and Kadri Gopalnath wanted to do a joint-concert in Malaysia, but were not permitted. Why? Too much of sax and violins. Such was the impact of Sri Kunnakudi and the violin.

Sulamangalam sisters were recording and releasing Murugan bakthi songs as non-filmy albums, with Sri Kunnakudi providing the simple but catchy music. AP Nagarajan was a friend and was impressed by Sri Kunnakudi's talents. He decided to use Sri Kunnakudi on an experimental basis and gave Sri Kunnakudi one song to set music to, in his film. The film was Kandhan Karunai and the song?

Now convinced on Sri Kunnakudi's abilities, AP Nagarajan moved from his asthaana MD, KV Mahadevan, to Sri Kunnakudi for his next film Vaa Raaja Vaa, which was released in 1969. Although TMS and PS were riding high then, Sri Kunnakudi did not use thier voices for his debut film, since the story was of a little boy (Master Prabhakar) and his adventures in Maamallapuram. The song kallellaam silai senjaan pallava raaja andha kadhai solla vandhEn chinna raaja by LRE captured the attention of many.

[NOV]

A musician was born! From the leagues of TR Paappa and TK Raamamoorty, violinists in thier own right, Sri Kunnakudi became a succesful musician with offers to direct music for several films. It must be mentioned that Sri Kunnakudi had already worked under prominent musicians such as G. Ramanathan and SM Subbiah Naidu.

Special mention must be made of AP Nagaran's Thirumalai Thenkumari and Kan Katchi. In Kan Katchi he made SP Bala sing anangan angathan anban ( http://tfmpage.com/stream/pow06/anangan_kk.rm ) on a very peculiar thaalam. SP Bala sounds very much like hero Sivakumar in the song. Santhanam wrote the lyrics.

When AP Nagarajan was making the film Navarathnam, APN approached Sri Kunnakudi and said that MGR would have his own preferences and he may not be able to use Sri Kunnakudi. But that was not to be as MGR with known knowledge on music also knew that Sri Kunnakudi was the asthaana isai amaippaalar for APN.

Apparently MGR was also a fan of Sri Kunnakudi's music and had initially appointed Sri Kunnakudi as the MD for his ambitious Ulagam Sutrum Vaaliban and had even a song recorded. Sri Kunnakudi says that it is public knowledge that MSV took over (what happened? Maybe jaambavaans like Manisekaran or Murali would care to explain).

Anyway, in the film Navarathinam, there was to be a song that reflected western music, carnatic music and also hindustan music. It was to be a gypsy song and MGR wanted "something different." Sri Kunnakudi did the unthinkable and had Bala Murali Krishna and Vani Jayram to sing the song, kuruvikkaara machaanE...!

Sri Kunnakudi firmly believed that music was natural and could brieng relief to the sick. He had set aside a Raga Research institute to further develop this. He mentioned that his father recovered from coma when Sri Kunnakudi played the violin! Such is the man's unshakeable belief in music. He had also released an album called KAAVERI with the soothing sounds of the jungle. (Anyone?)