As the entertainment industry mourns the passing of the versatile and powerful singer S B Balasubramanian, music composers and co-singers are marveling at his extraordinary ability to
“pick up” (music recording parlance for memorizing the lyrics and composition in no time at all).
Recalls Lalit Pandit (of Jatin-Lalit ), “I am extremely saddened to hear the terrible news. He was a legendary artist. I had the opportunity of making him sing for a complete film of mine -‘VAADE IRADE’. He arrived in Mumbai by the morning flight. He sang all four songs in one day and caught an evening flight back to Chennai the same day.It was the only day I met and worked with him and it was a memorable day. It was the fastest four-song Dub in my career.”
Lalit recalls with pleasure how quickly SPB got a hang of a tune. “He had an extraordinary knack of learning the melody quickly. Only Baluji could have matched the energy-level of Kishoreda in Saagar in the song Yuhi gaate raho.”
Yuhi gaate raho, indeed.
