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My first break
Bombay Jayashree
How it happened
My grandfathers were bhagavathars. My parents were Carnatic music teachers. At eight, I started learning Carnatic music. I gave my first concert in 1982 in our own colony on Ganesh Chathurthi day. After that I used to sing jingles and devotional songs. Whenever I listened to the songs of Lata and Rafi, my mother would ask me to memorise them and make me sing them. This became a daily routine. I would sing in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and Tamil. Tamil film director Muktha Srinivasan’s daughter lived in our colony. She told her father about me. He asked me to come to Chennai and sing. That was in 1983, and it was the first time I sang two solos and two duets with S.P.Balasubramaniam in the film Thambadhigal. That was my first recording for a film.
How it felt
I was glad to sing for a feature film and that too in Tamil. Once I met Lalgudi Jayaraman; he asked me to come to Chennai if I was interested in learning more. I jumped at the offer and shifted base to Chennai. A wonderful teacher, he advised us to listen to all kinds of music. When I came to Chennai I started getting offers from some of the best music directors here. I sang for Ilaiyaraja (Vietnam Colony) and A. R. Rahman (Iruvar). One day, music director Harris Jayaraj called me for a recording. It was for his film Minnale. I told him I could sing only in ‘G’ sharp and not at the high pitch in which the song had been composed. He was understanding, and the song was recorded in two hours. It became a hit. After this I sang more songs for him.
How life changed
My lifestyle did not change much but I became popular. While this was good, I was a little worried it should not spoil my Carnatic music career. But it was the other way round. People who knew me came to my concerts to see how I rendered Carnatic songs. I have till now sung 50 songs in all the South Indian languages and Hindi and Bhojpuri.
S.R.ASHOK KUMAR
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