S.P. Balasubramaniam

S.P. Balasubramaniam

Sripathi Panditaradhyula Balasubrahmanyam (4 June 1946 – 25 September 2020), also referred to as SPB or SP Balu or Balu, was an Indian playback singer, television presenter, actor, music composer, dubbing artist, and film producer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Indian singers of all time. He predominantly worked in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi films and sang in a total of 16 languages.Balasubrahmanyam debuted as a playback singer on 15 December 1966 with a Telugu film Sri Sri Sri Maryada Ramanna scored by his mentor, S. P. Kodandapani. In career spanning over five decades, he has won six National Film Awards for Best Male Playback Singer for his works in four different languages – Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Hindi; 25 Andhra Pradesh state Nandi Awards for his work in Telugu cinema; and numerous other state awards from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments. In addition, he won six Filmfare Awards South and a Filmfare Award. According to some sources, he held the Guinness World Record for recording the highest number of songs by a singer with over 50,000 songs in 16 languages. On 8 February 1981, he created a record by recording 27 songs in Kannada from 9 am to 9 pm. In addition, he recorded 19 songs in Tamil, and 16 songs in Hindi in a day, which has also been called a record.In 2012, Balasubrahmanyam received the NTR National Award from Government of Andhra Pradesh. In 2015, he received the Harivarasanam Award from the Government of Kerala. In 2016, he was honoured with the Indian Film Personality of the Year award at the 47th International Film Festival of India. He was a recipient of the Padma Shri (2001), Padma Bhushan (2011), and Padma Vibhushan (posthumously) (2021) from the Government of India. On 25 September 2020, Balasubrahmanyam died in Chennai after being hospitalized for over a month for complications due to COVID-19.

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