MSV : His Music and his times - Part 7 : Their legacy

Before we go and talk about MSV's music after the split, let us examine what Vishwanathan Ramamurthy left behind for Tamil film music fans and what their legacy is.

The first point about their music has already been made. They were the ones who modernized Tamil film music and got it out of the clutches of classical music.

The second important aspect was their dominance led to their sound being 'the' sound of those five years from 1961 to 1965. Let me give you some examples here. Listen to these two songs and without reading further try and guess which of these songs is by Vishwanathan Ramamurthy and which isn't.

First this one.



Then this one.



Or let us take these two songs.

First listen to this:



Then listen to this:



You can see that there is a certain similarity in the songs, though those who have keenly followed Tamil film music will know which of these songs are by KVM and which are by Vishwanathan Ramamurthy. KVM did have his own style but his best Tamil songs (for social movies) sounded close to Vishwanathan Ramamurthy's style to an uninitiated listener. So lot of KVM's songs are also written in Vishwanathan Ramamurthy's account.

Here is one more which is written in Vishwanathan Ramamurthy's account but is not by them.



The song's music director is R.Sudarsanam.

The impact of Vishwanathan Ramamurthy was such that any good song of those times made people suspect the song was by them.

Earlier I used to think, like many others, that KVM moved away to Telugu unable to withstand the assault of Vishwanathan Ramamurthy. I have heard a few more people say that but when I checked the statistics, I see that I am wrong. For example in 1960 KVM had 9 Tamil movies, as opposed to 5 movies of Vishwanathan Ramamurthy. In 1962, KVM had 12 movies, approximately the same as Vishwanathan Ramamurthy. 1n 1963, he had 22 movies !!! In 1964 it came down to 9 and he had the same number of Tamil movies in 1965. From this what we can conclude is that Vishwanathan Ramamurthy were much more consistent in their films and hence even though overall in those five years they may have done just the same number of movies that KVM did, their sound and their songs have had much more impact than any other MD of those times.

Along with bringing in modernity, Vishwanathan Ramamurthy were also responsible for the rise of three top class singers. None of them were introduced by them but their fame in Tamil rests heavily on the tunes of Vishwanathan Ramamurthy. Those three were, T M Soundarrajan, P B Srinivas and P Susheela. The great thing they did was to make TMS change his style and gave him an opportunity to display his versatility. Similarly they gave P B Srinivas some of the best songs in his career. He ofcourse was a famous singer in Kannada but his Tamil repertoire is majorly biased towards Vishwanathan Ramamurthy. Here is one outstanding song which these two giants sung together.



Susheela was the most sought after singer in Telugu films and again some her best in Tamil is by Vishwanathan Ramamurthy. The light melancolic touch favored her voice and at the other end of the spectrum they gave her 'Pudhiya Paravai' songs. Such variety she got from them.

Observe how perfectly Susheela's voice fits this song:



And to give you the other end of the spectrum, here is Susheela with PBS.



These three voices owe a lot to Vishwanathan Ramamurthy and they will readily agree when we say this.

The next aspect is what probably will provide immortality to Vishwanathan Ramamurthy: the way their songs fit perfectly for certain emotional states. For example, the philosophical state which is represented by 'ponal pogattum poda' or 'satti suttadhada'. The extreme tragedy due to a state of helplessness as represented by 'ulllathil nalla ullam', the song for the sister in 'malargalai pol thangai urangugiral'



Or the revolutionary fervor of 'naan aanaiyitaal'. Or the tragic lullaby of 'malarndhum malaradha'. Or the standard Tamil language songs in 'sindhu nadhiyin misai nilavinile' and 'tamizhukku amudhenru paer'. Or the canonical wedding song, 'vaarayo thozi'. Such a range of emotions they dealt with and even today people reach for these songs when they encounter such emotions. That is their greatest legacy I would say.

Vishwanathan Ramamurthy can also be credited for putting up a brave front and winning against the assault of Hindi film music. Beyond doubt, Hindi film music was the fount of inspiration for music directors across India. Vishwanathan Ramamurthy's admiration of Naushad is well known. They too would be inspired by Hindi songs but not too much. Those were the days when even famous MDs were pushed into copying tunes from the North. Vishwanathan Ramamurthy were called the Shankar Jaikishen of South but personally I believe they were better than Shankar Jaikishen. When the Tamil films which had music by Vishwanathan Ramamurthy were remade in Hindi - films like 'Alaya Mani' (Aadmi - Naushad), 'Nenjil Oru Aalayam' ('Dil Ek Mandir' - Shankar Jaikishen) and 'Paalum Pazhamum' ('Saathi' - Naushad), the music in the Hindi versions did not rise upto the Tamil version.

Vishwanathan Ramamurthy's music was quite popular in Telugu as well but most of these were dubbed songs. Yet, they were big hits in Telugu and are part of Gantasala and Susheela hits. In the 50s itself Vishwanathan Ramamurthy tuned this amazing ashtapadhi.



You can guess the impact Vishwanathan Ramamurthy's music had on Telugu if you listen to this song from 'Poolarangudu' which is so close to 'indha manrathil odi varum'



I must say that Telugu film music derived a lot from Hindustani music but Vishwanathan Ramamurthy did leave their impact there. (BTW, the singer in this song is not PBS. It is a person called KVK Mohan Raju)

So who carried their legacy forward? The sad answer is no one. MSV and TKR in their own way carried it forward for a couple of years after which TKR vanished and MSV changed his style completely. The later music directors like Rahman would be inspired by MSV while others like Imman would be inspired by Ilayaraja. No one could replicate those simple heart touching tightly structured melodies of Vishwanathan Ramamurthy.

The other aspect which may be worth noting here is that other than KVM, there really was no music director who could challenge Vishwanathan Ramamurthy. As I indicated earlier, the sounds of KVM and Vishwanathan Ramamurthy were not too different. This was in contrast to Hindi where quality music directors competed with each other. If Naushad was classical, Shankar Jaikishen the hit makers, O P Nayyar was the trend setter, Roshan and Madan Mohan were kings of melody, Salilda was a genius with a complex musical mind. Then there was the ever youthful S D Burman. In a way unfortunately Tamil did not have such variety due to paucity of quality music directors. Ofcourse we cannot blame Vishwanathan Ramamurthy for that. They did their best but others didn't rise to their level.

I will leave you with some Hindi songs which will give you an idea of the variety they had. In the next part, we will start our journey with MSV.

Here is an everlasting melody of O P Nayyar. Does the start and the tune in general take you to 'naalam naalaam thirunaalam'?



Here is Roshan with a delicate melody



Madan Mohan's melody which reverberated across India



Salil Chaudhary's folk influenced number



Jaidev's playful but unforgettable tune:



Here is Burman da in a playful mode



And to round of, that troubled genius Sajjad Hussain's melody



And I have not included Naushad, Shankar Jaikishan, Ravi and others. The sheer variety in Hindi film music was mind boggling.