Maha Shiva Rathri selection

Wish you all a happy and prosperous Maha Shiva Rathri. May the Lord of eternal joy bless us all and shower his kindness on us. I am very glad to resume blogging on this auspicious day. In last two years, I was introduced to the music of many legends. I had heard their names a lot but didn't know them through their music. Pt Jasraj is one such and is my current favorite.

When I was young I used to watch the DD TV serial Om Namah Shivaya without fail. I still believe this is the best serial on Lord Shiva I know of. For me, the most important part of the serial was the title song with Lord Shiva shaped flame dancing to it. I t never occurred to me that that song could have been sung by any being. Here is link to a youtube video of the song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpixCnebhqw

I later stumbled upon a youtube video of Uma Maheshwara Stotra which took all my attention. Thanks to the uploader who mentioned Pandit Ji's name in the title of the video and to my brain that instantly matched his voice to the title song of Om Namah Shivaya, I passionately started searching for more songs of him. I was mesmerized by his unique voice which was melodious yet had amazing depth, his effortless and impeccable rendering. Link to Uma Maheswara Stotra

In case you are wondering, Uma Maheswara Stotra praises Goddess Parvathi (Uma), mother of the universe and Lord Shiva, Father of the Universe. It's a beautiful stotra that sounds even more beautiful in Pandit Ji's voice.

I was so to learn that there are a whole lot of songs in praise of Lord Shiva sung by Jasraj ji. In fact, there is an album named Shiv Upasana which has 8 songs all sung by himself. I was thrilled after listening to them all. Not only his rendering, all the songs had beautiful music that would surely take one to a trance. A listing of the album can be found here http://www.last.fm/music/Pandit+Jasraj/Shiv+Upasana

The great Ghantasala who is unparallelled for devotional singing did not sing many songs on Lord Shiva (He did sing many but not too many). This gap was partially filled by SPB who sang many songs in praise of the Lord of cosmic dance. However, I believe that Jasraj ji completely filled this gap for me.

Once again wish you all a memorable Maha Shivarathri. Jay Shiva Shankar Bhagavan, Jay Ma Mahadevi.

How Sweet Shreya!!

We know how Ghantasala encouraged and supported SPB right from his first song "Emi ee vintha mohamu". In fact, many yesteryear singers used to adopt and support upcoming singers and help them in their growth. Shreya Ghoshal, three times national award winning singer, is one new generation singer of that kind.

Shreya was to sing a song for the Telugu movie "Villagelo Vinayakudu" which is being directed by Sai Kiran and music by Mani Kanth. The same song was already rendered a newcomer called Swetha Mohan. As the director Sai Kiran was not satisfied with her rendition, Shreya was asked to sing the song. She heard Swetha's version before her rehearsals and was impressed. Shreya said "She sang beautifully. Whose voice is this? She sang better than me. I can't improvise this. I just have to follow her." She refused to sing and advised the MD to keep Swetha's version. She even called Swetha and congratulated her.

Hariharan, who was there in the recording theatre, was impressed with the way Shreya encouraged an upcoming singer and appreciated her. By the way, Swetha Mohan is none other than the daughter of famous singer Sujatha.

reference: http://www.eenadu.net/archives/archive-21-9-2009/ncineshow.asp?qry=kalagura

JPF Music Awards

Ilayaraja, Rahman and Shri Krishna nominated for the JPF music awards in the best album category.

Look for Indian albums nominated in the following site.

http://www.jpfolks.com/09albumnoms.html

Many Many happy returns of the day Ilayaraja sir. I wish I could write millions of things right in this post on the occasion of his birthday. But due to many constraints I am unable to.

Long live Ilayaraja .

An article in Sakshi paper on Ilayaraja

I don't usually see much about our Raaja in Telugu media. But this one is a very well written post about the Maestro.


http://www.sakshi.com/main/WeeklyDetails.aspx?Newsid=25378&Categoryid=5&subcatid=13

Non-Telugu singers

This post by Suresh inspired me to write after a long time.

I have listened to the song "naa madi ninnu pilichindi" from Aradhana many times. As a kid I always thought it was very different and unique. I later started feeling a little "odd" whenever I heard the song. I never realised it myself that it was sung by a Hindi singer (I was small then and it was the first time I heard about Rafi). I somehow felt that the degree of oddness in that song was not very high.

Later I encountered many many songs which made me feel very odd (Many of them are due to horrible lyrics, but writing about that will make my post horribly long). Naturally and unfortunately, many non-Telugu singers who sing Telugu songs are very well reputed.

Once me and my mother were listening to radio and my mother was irritated with the female singer's accent and started criticising and I joined her. After the song, they informed that it was sung by Lata Mangeshkar. I sort of felt bad then. I listened to some Telugu songs of Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhonsle. They are great singers but not those songs. There surely are not many songs by them.

But more recently, I see a lot of Hindi singers surviving in Telugu industry in spite of their intolerable performances. I have not liked a single song by Udit Narayan in Telugu though I actually like the Hindi Udit. Sadhana Sargam is also not so good (She is better now). Disturbing thing is that there are many north singers entering Tollywood continue to sing more whereas many singers here are not getting enough opportunities.

My post is titled Non-Telugu singers, not North singers. I think I should talk about other Non-Telugu singers. Can anyone believe that Vani Jayaram and Chithra are not from Andhra Pradesh? I can't.
Most south Indian singers including the recent Karthik, Tippu have good accent. They are not a problem.

Yeah, That brings up another issue. When there are good South Indian singers around, why does anybody need to go for Sonu Nigams or Kailash Khers? (I Can't imagine Telugu worse than his). Bad thing is that the big and reputed Music Directors themselves are going for these Northers. Good thing is that I see many good South singers these days. I hope they all get opportunities and make place for themselves in the Industry.

Ugadi

Andarikee Virodhi Naama samvathsara Subhakankshalu.

Wish you all a happy New year.