Legendary Singer SP Balasubrahmanyam passes away

Legendary playback singer Sripathi Panditaradhyula Balasubrahmanyam fondly called as Balu or SPB passed away yesterday.

This veteran singer was admitted to MGM Healthcare Hospital, Chennai due to COVID-19 on August 5th, 2020.

Though he tested negative for COVID-19 in early September, he was on life support due to other complications.

SPB is survived by his wife and two children, Pallavi and Charan.

His son Charan has been sharing the updates of his health with fans. Earlier in this week, he said that SPB was responsive to treatment and expressed hope for a complete recovery.

Meanwhile the day before yesterday, the hospital released a health bulletin stating that his health was critical and he was continued on life support. And, he passed away yesterday at 1:04 p.m.

Here are a few interesting facts about the legendary playback singer:

SP Balasubrahmanyam holds a Guinness World Record for singing over 40,000 songs in various Indian languages for more than 50 years.

He sang the most number of songs in a single day than any other singer. He recorded 21 songs in 12 hours in Kannada in 1981. Similarly, he recorded 19 songs in Tamil in a single day and 16 songs in Hindi which is a record.

Balu had 6 National Film Awards in four languages. He was a professional dubbing artist and film producer as well.

SPB was once rejected by a Hindi music composer saying that he cannot pronounce Hindi properly. However, he sang many Hindi songs later and won a National Film Award as Best Male Playback Singer for his first Hindi movie, Ek Duje Ke Liye.

He acted in more than 72 films in Telugu, Tamil, and Kannada. Though his mother tongue is Telugu, he could speak all these languages fluently.

He hosted many music reality shows. His music reality show, ‘Paadutha Theeyaga’ on ETV is very popular.

There are many more such facts about this veteran singer.

As soon as the news spread of his demise, condolences pour in.

His fans feel that though he died, his voice and songs live forever.

May his soul rest in peace!

Image Credit: Chengappa C B (wikicheng) / CC BY 3.0

Image Credit: Harshaisediting / CC BY-SA 4.0

Image Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SPBalasubrahmanyam_in_Bangalore_8th_Nov_2008.jpg, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ETV_Paadutha_Theeyaga_Poster.jpg