SPB: 10 Facts You Didn’t Know about the Legend
SP Balasubrahmanyam (SPB in short) was a legendary singer, actor, and more in the Indian (particularly South Indian) movie industry.
Here are 10 facts you didn’t know about SPB:
- SPB belonged to a Telugu Brahmin family and was born and raised in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh.
- SPB was admitted to, and began to study Engineering before he dropped out of college due to Typhoid.
- He recorded 21 songs in a single day (a world record) for the Kannada composer Upendra Kumar in 1981.
- Illayaraja, before becoming a music director in films, used to play harmonium and guitar in a music troupe in which SBP also sang.
- His first Tamil song was a duet with LR Eswari composed by MS Viswanathan for the movie ‘Hotel Ramba’. But this movie was never released.
- SPB was the voice behind Salman Khan’s biggest Bollywood musical hits like Maine Pyar Kiya, Hum Aapke Hain Koun, etc.
- SPB was also a leading dubbing artist. He gave voice to seven of the nine characters in the Telugu version of Kamal Hassan’s ‘Dasavataram’.
- SPB hosted the leading TV singing competition show ‘Padutha Theeyaga’ from 1996 to 2020, spanning 1100 episodes.
- SPB has sung over 40,000 songs in 16 languages in a career that spanned over 50-years.
- In May 2020, SPB along with Illayaraja released the ‘Bharat Bhoomi‘ Tamil single which was a tribute to frontline workers fighting COVID-19, of which he was affected and died later.
Destination Infinity
Great. Thanks for the info. I thought you would include song “Mannil Indha Kaadhal” from the movie Keladi Kanmani where he sang a certain verse all in one breath.
That song should’ve been a huge effort, but I am not sure if that’s a record.
Destination Infinity
A great singer. A good compilation of very interesting points.
Ya, I think there are always many interesting things that we don’t know about people. Even if they have a Wikipedia profile!
Destination Infinity