The Golden Era of Dr.IR and Dr.SPB

[app_engine]

app_engine

Just a thought: When you and your friends are enjoying the Illayaraja's hits, was there in any specific song in that time period 81/84, that stuck a chord with your out-of-state friends(above the Vindhiysas)?

Just curious? Can't imagine, unless one is stone deaf, you are not getting swayed by at least some of his songs

Bala

Good question

During the Agate time period (1st sem), the whole year was in one hostel with wingmates from around the country. There was significant cross-cultural interchange.

'kaNNE kalaimAnE' was a huge fav and NI students sang / played on guitar etc.

However, from the next sem, there was choice of hostels (one of the two) and also choice of wingmates. From 4th sem, in the single room stuff, each wing had 21 rooms (6 wings per hostel) and the closer friendships were mostly limited to your wing / floor mates and people tend to flock based on their background / identities etc.

That limited the cross-cultural connection to a great extent and I had limited opportunities to strike lasting friendships with Hindi-speaking boys Except some "common-room-carrom-cricket" connections. So, didn't have much interactions with them.

Generally speaking, however, during music / entertainment programs, festember etc, all the popular hits of rAsA were enjoyed by students from all states

[app_engine]

youtube of insufficient kisses :

[balaji]

Thanks app-engine

Nice to note IR's music did move others as well.. Never was lucky to be in an environment where IR's music ruled and we had people who are say RDB's fans and others trying to "at least" accept his great music. (Even though in IMHO SDB/RDB rank second to IR, that is a far second., way behind....)

Thanks for sharing your personal experience.

Bala

[genesis]

Ofcourse, Plum, we're only dealing with Thamizh numbers in this thread. It's very much possible that IR had similar number (or bigger number) with SPB in other languages, especially Telungu. In TFM, he seems to have diversified quite a bit with a variety of male singers (KJY / PJ / MV / IR himself & some odd ones) but it wouldn't have been the case in TeFM.

Raja was always well diversified with his male singers. TFM was that way lucky.... KJY was for soft melodious songs, SPB for lively entertaining songs, MV for folkish fast songs, IR for soulful sad songs and PJ somewhere in between KJY and SPB . Because of the dominance of KJY/SPB in Kerala/AP, I **think** there was not that much diversity in MFM and TeFM. That being said both KJY/SPB are well capable of rendering any type of song... just there was no variety.

But in female singers after the exit of Jensi, Raja mostly used Janaki for more than 80% of his songs, rest 20% was shared between PS, VJ and SPS; until 1985 when he found Chitra.

[groucho070]

Enakkul Oruvan - from the YGM as lead comedian phase of Kamal. Enough said. Forgive. Forget. Flush from Memory. But then indha rasiayan engE maRakka vudaRAn. Indha padathai ellAm memory-la firmA implant paNNidaRAn

Good good. Big hit at home, video cassette remba nAlA odinuchu.

App, great job as usual. Also, hope you can give comparison with Kamal's version of Megam Kottattum next.

[KV]

Waitees! Kamal's version of Megam Kottatum aa? Ippidi oru version iruka enna?

[Plum]

Ofcourse, yes, KV. Infact, when I try to recollect the song, I am only getting Kamal's version in the head.

[KV]

kEttAchu! Koot, but (thalaivarE manchikOnga) SPB gambheeramE thani ya.
(that drums+mrudangam postlude.. arAjamgam, akkramam, asuraththanam)

[Plum]

Not disputing any of that. But printla megam kottattumnu parthavune mind-la kamal voice dhaan odichu. Maybe last time I heard it, which must be a good decade back, I heard the
Kamal version perhaps

[KV]

Strange enough, I’ve had a contrasting opinion on some other songs that has versions by these two.
Kanmani anbOdu kAdhalan and NinaivO oru paravai… SPB’s gult versions come nowhere close to Kamal’s Thamizh rendition, to me.

Related digression:
Thanni karuthurichu - MV v/s SPB - MV wins hands down.
kOdai kAla kAtre - MV v/s SPB - SPB, big time.
kAdhal Oviyam pAdum kAviyam - IR v/s SPB - IR, without an iota of doubt.

EnnayA pattern idhu!