S.P.Balasubrahmanyam

Shripathi Panditaradhyula Balasubrahmanyam (born 4 June 1946) mostly referred to as S.P.B. or Balu is an Indian playback singer, music director, actor, dubbing artist and film producer who works predominantly in Telugu, Tamil and Kannada cinema.He has recorded over 40,000 songs in 16 Indian languages.He has garnered six National Film Awards for Best Male Playback Singer for his works in four different languages; Telugu, Hindi, Kannada and Tamil; twenty five Andhra Pradesh state Nandi Awards for his works towards Telugu cinema, numerous other state awards from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.In addition, he garnered the Bollywood Filmfare Award, and six Filmfare Awards South. He is honored with the Guinness World Record for recording the most film scores.In 2012, he received the state Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao National Award for his contributions to Indian cinema.In 2016, he is honored with the Indian Film Personality of the Year consisting of a Silver Peacock Medal.He is a recipient of civilian awards such as Padmashri (2001) and Padma Bhushan (2011) from the government of India.

Balasubrahmanyam made his debut as a playback singer on 15 December 1966 with Sri Sri Sri Maryada Ramanna, a Telugu film scored by his mentor, S. P. Kodandapani.[31][32] The first Non-Telugu song that he recorded just eight days after his debut Telugu song was in Kannada in 1966 for the film Nakkare Ade Swarga, starring Kannada comedy stalwart T. R. Narasimharaju.[33][34] He recorded his first Tamil song "Athaanodu ippadi irundhu eththanai naalaachu" (duet with LR Eswari) for famed music director MSV in the film "Hotel Ramba", a film which never got released. Unfortunately, there are no surviving copies of this song. Other early songs he sang were duets with PSusheela: "Iyarkai Ennum Ilaya Kanni" in the 1969 film Shanti Nilayam, starring Gemini Ganesh, and "Aayiram Nilavae Vaa" for MGR in Adimaippenn.[35] His first song with SJanaki was "Pournami Nilavil Pani vizhum Iravil" in Kannippenn. He was then introduced to the Malayalam film industry by G. Devarajan in the film Kadalppalam.[36] He has the rare distinction of rendering the most songs on a single day by any singer. He has recorded 21 songs in Kannada for the composer Upendra Kumar in Bangalore from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm on 8 February 1981 and 19 songs in Tamil, 16 songs in Hindi in a day which is a notable achievement and a record.[5] He established a prolific career. "There were days when I used to record 15–20 songs, but only for Anand-Milind. And I would take the last flight back to Chennai."[37][38] In the 1970s, he also worked with M. S. Viswanathan in Tamil movies for actors such as M. G. Ramachandran, Sivaji Ganesan and Gemini Ganesan. He recorded duets with P. Susheela, S. Janaki, Vani Jayaram and L. R. Eswari. Balasubrahmanyam's association with Ilaiyaraaja began even before Ilaiyaraaja came to the cine field. In those days, SPB used to sing in towns and villages all over south India and Ilaiyaraaja, then an unknown harmonium and guitar player accompanied SPB by playing in his concerts.