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Malaysian Deepavali Show - RAJANNA RAJA THAAN - From Annakkili to Azhagi

Topic started by Manisekaran (@ 202.156.2.8) on Sun Nov 7 05:23:27 EST 2004.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Last year I did a show on Ilayaraja for Deepavali. IT was so great a hit that the ASTRO Private TV Station is repeating on 9 NOvember at 4.00 pm Malaysian time. This is called RAJANNA RAJATHAAN- covering 25 years of Raja's music contribution. From Annakkili to Azhagi. A great hit. If you can, pls do catch it. You can post your comments on the show here, and I'll respond to them.
Thanks.

Archive of the older songs: http://forumhub.lunarpages.com/hub/f13.html .

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: geno (@ 61.2.32.131) on: Sun Nov 21 03:04:45 EST 2004
  
  Dear Manisekaran,
  
  great going!! Thanx :=)
  
  But i hope that you would not take an extreme bias towards the great IR's side in the Vairamuthu - IR break-up, if you plan to write about that too - later! :=)
  
  Vairamuthu - IR break-up is completely unlike the other controversies surrounding IR's career, since VM has never said even one word denigrating the genius of IR! :=)
  
  Thanks and i'm jealous that you are gonna meet up and converse with our great legend IR ;=)))))
  
  
• From: RR (@ 218.186.190.8) on: Sun Nov 21 05:04:20 EST 2004
  
  Friends: We are trying to bring out audios of the songs being discussed.
  
  You can listen to the latest song here:
  
  http://newtfmpage.com/cgi-bin/stream.pl?url=http://newtfmpage.com/songs/nallavarkellam.rm
  
  (no .mp3 requests pls.)
  
  
• From: prabhudas (@ 143.104.179.93) on: Sun Nov 21 07:12:42 EST 2004
  
  RR,
  Thanks
  
  Prabhudas
  
  
• From: Bala (@ 68.38.80.142) on: Sun Nov 21 12:40:26 EST 2004
  
  Mani Sir
  
  Some questions:
  1. Sir, we have heard that Raja wanted Lata Mangeshkar to sing his first song in Annakili. Is that true. Why did Raja chose SJanaki. Is it because of GKV's choice when he was an Assistant to the director to many kanada films? Can you please throw some light here?
  
  2. Did Illayaraja had to use less of Kannadasan so as to not irk Panju Arunachalam?
  
  3. Raja gave the music for Don's remake in Telugu where he was forced to retain the Hindi Tunes (I think NTR was the hero!). How did Raja feel about this. I had the misfortune of hearing the copied songs in Telugu in 1979/80! (the program that used to play all South Indian movie songs between 4:15 and 5:30 PM) Was shocked to hear Raja as the MD for the film...
  
  4. Raaja sir recorded the music for Johny in Mahendran's absence, we were told. When Mahendran made Nandu, Raaja had the same situation and recorded the songs. Mahendran came back and asked raaja to redo all/some of the songs. I would love to know what would have been the original version that Raaja did by himself. Is the above incident true? If so any thoughts on the songs raaja first recorded!
  
  
  Sir waiting to hear from you. Thanks once again for the excellent writeup!
  
  Bala
  
  
  
• From: Manisekaran (@ 61.6.39.139) on: Sun Nov 21 20:50:03 EST 2004
  
  Dear Friends,
  
  Ther had been too many requests and too many querries. I may not have answer to all for one simple and bare truth- I am only a fan of IR, but not an authority. Kindly look at the other inputs fromreaders. They too seem to know so much on IR.
  
  I consider IR and his music an ocean that cannot be fathomed by simple fans like me. I shall provide answer to the extent I know.
  
  Some of these querries, such as to why IR did not use Kannadasan much would be dealt with later.
  
  About IR composing for TMS, I was told during my visit to Prasad studio in December 1986 that IR composed for TMS under GKV, but the song was not mentioned. Otherwise I would have mentioned it.How not to mention? People in the music industry have told me that many musicians in the band have given tunes to the MDs, and the MDs had used them under their names. The original composers (band players) do not get the share of the cake, neither name. I guess this could have been the case with IR under GKV.
  
  There was a concern expressed on me running down TMS who himself embarassed, humilated and ran don Ilayaraja on a number of occassions. What I revealed was only the tip of the Ice berg. In fact I had omitted, edited and avoided much of what I know. I am aware this is a sincere concern. I had written this in a Malaysian weekly and was accepted.
  
  I had similar problems when I was writing on the 12 Janyary 1967 incident- Pongal eve when MR Radha shot MGR. After mentioing in passing, stopped there and urged those interested to email me to get the minute details. The TFM DF Team immediately responeded asking me to post all those details on the thread itself. So id did not provide the privy information to any one. Neither did I post on the thread.
  
  
  Now my stand is this: Every writer has his own style and the readers have their own expectations. Giving the TMS- IR episode was only a small scale MATHAAPPU VEDI. I thought of exposing even stronger YAANAI VEDI to make the article more interesting.
  
  However, respecting your concerns, I think I will stick to the facts and where controversy is involved, I shall only give an indication, on condition readers do not ask me to reveal further on the areas of those controversies. I think that is the best course of action I can take, if that is what readers want. That would be a fair deal. Is that alright with the readers?I need feedback from others as well. I shall move on after I get sufficent feedback.
  
  
  Anbudan,
  Manisekaran
  
  
  
  
  
• From: MumbaiRamki (@ 63.228.165.120) on: Sun Nov 21 22:00:08 EST 2004
  
  Manisekharan,
  Can you please tell more abt urself ..this is teh first time iam meeting u in web :)
  
  
• From: MumbaiRamki (@ 63.186.10.35) on: Sun Nov 21 22:31:59 EST 2004
  
  Manisekharan
  I think u are perfectly correct .......Our aim is to discuss abt raaja and at teh same time we don't fans of other singers /MD getting hurt too !!!
  
  
• From: jeeves (@ 203.101.40.22) on: Sun Nov 21 23:05:27 EST 2004
  
  Manisekaran,
  Regarding IR-TMS edpisode, personally I would like to hear the truth. You may not know 100% about IR. Still if you know 80% of it
  I feel it should be recorded here.
  
  I beleive we (true TFM fans) all respect and love them for their talents not for their actions.
  
  
• From: io (@ 68.231.12.84) on: Mon Nov 22 01:23:07 EST 2004
  
  Mani Sir,
  I really applaud you for being sensitive to others' concerns. Please continue with whatever is comfortable to you and feel fair enough. Anything you offer would be great interest and value to us.
  
  
• From: raj (@ 203.200.216.62) on: Mon Nov 22 03:34:09 EST 2004
  
  Mr.manisekaran, I request you to go ahead and share the details you know. It is for the fans of other artistes to take it or leave it.If they want to persist with their image of their favourite artiste, let them. But to expect that image to be established with everyone else and preventing certain facts to be published is not fair on their part.
  
  I request you to take these in your stride and record your experiences. It is really informative and nice to know the kind of events you are narrating
  
  
• From: RRA (@ 203.199.213.194) on: Mon Nov 22 04:58:30 EST 2004
  
  Mr. Manisekaran: Reg. the TMS-IR tiff, I recall
  that the song "Ellorum Paadungal" sung by SPB in Naan Vaazha Veippen was apparently originally sung by TMS and recorded. TMS in fact played both version in front of an audience (in Sri Lanka?) and asked them to decide which one was better. This appeared I think in Kumudam. IR responded saying that he had no role in it and it was the decision of the producers. At that IR recalled earlier problems with TMS. Two songs he mentioned were "Annakiliye" and "Andapuratthil".
  RRA
  
  
• From: TISK (@ 199.90.34.67) on: Mon Nov 22 09:51:28 EST 2004
  
  "However, respecting your concerns, I think I will stick to the facts and where controversy is involved, I shall only give an indication, on condition readers do not ask me to reveal further on the areas of those controversies. I think that is the best course of action I can take, if that is what readers want. That would be a fair deal. Is that alright with the readers?I need feedback from others as well. I shall move on after I get sufficent feedback."
  You have proved yourself to be a gentleman, Mr. Mani! I agree with your sensitivity and hope this thread doesn't digress into unnecessary comments from concerned fans . You are doing a great service to TFM history. And, I don't want that to be diluted by these sort of controversies. That's all I wanted to convey! Thanks again.
  
  
  
• From: eden (@ 136.1.1.101) on: Mon Nov 22 11:41:31 EST 2004
  
  Great going guys!
  Is the #5 of this series `chinnakkaNNan azhaikkiRAn'? or `kaNdEn engum poomagaL nAttiyam...kAtrinilE varum geetham' or `sendhoorappoovE'...illa, illa, it will be `senthAzham poovil vandhAdum thendRal'....
  
  On less songs by Kannadasan:
  My guess is probably the health / availability of KD...I don't think Panju A, who used to be KD's assistant worked against his chances...neither can IR be pushed like that by PA for long...(AmAm, what will an assistant to a lyricist do? typist work?) In any case, let's wait for Manisekaran to reveal...
  
  
• From: kiru (@ 192.138.150.249) on: Mon Nov 22 12:50:16 EST 2004
  
  Dear Sir Mani,
  It was a pleasure reading your articles. I think you have addressed TISK's concerns. I guess all this happened 30 years ago, so it should not have the same pungency like some news that happened few days back. So it should all be okay.
  
  One of the posters here mentioned about early IR's songs having MSV's influence. I am of the same opinion. I dont know when the break from MSV happened. Most probabaly it must have been very gradual. It is also possible, the break becomes very visible when IR started using the bass guitar, even with overtly classical #s.
  
  There are quite a few songs of IR under GKV which can be easily spotted for IR's handiwork and the PB Sreenivas songs sound exactly like IR's voice and pitch. I think this is one of the reasons PBS mentions that IR has talents which many others dont recognise. TMS schooled in the indian way of singing, probably did not have the appreciation for the harmony backed style of IR's compositions.
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 68.16.25.50) on: Mon Nov 22 17:06:53 EST 2004
  
  Manisekaran, I think you can state exactly what happened without probably quoting verbatim some of the artistes involved. I dont think hiding all the criticisms and just stating the praises alone here makes for interesting reading. Most of the praises for IR, we have already read elsewhere. I would be interested in reading objective assessments and criticisms like that of Seerkazhi Govindarajan's, in case you had interviewed some of those singers at that time.
  
  Also, if you had met/talked with Purushottaman, Chandrasekhar and some of the other unsung musicians in IR's troupe please write more about them as well and their experiences in working with IR.
  
  

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