Ilaiyaraja's New Albums 2016-18, News and Titbits

[rajsekar]

I was watching the video where Raaja was at Thiru Panju Arunachalam's funeral and his silence amidst all the noise there. I was thinking, what if Thiru Panju hadn't given that opportunity to a 21 year old music assistant? Gangai Amaran rightly summed up saying that the entire Raaja family wouldn't exist if Thiru Panju hadn't pushed the young boy to compose music for a film. It seems like Thiru Panju was born in this world to give the musical gift "Ilayaraaja" to everyone. As we all know and acknowledged by Raaja himself, Annakili was not the first film that Raaja had composed full music. He had composed music for few films back in 1974-75 time frame while working as an assistant to GKV. Thiru Panju's association with Raaja started in 1974 and the next year he offered the composing role to him. Gangai Amaran had mentioned in few interviews that Tamil Film Producers and Directors were against a 21 year boy doing music direction for a movie. Listen to Raaja's experience on how the first humming in the song was created. It is mind blowing to think that this boy had so much creativity and musical nuances back in 1974. Annakili was a path-breaking and trendsetting film in Tamil language. After this the industry began filming movies in full outdoor and Raaja started conquering the hearts of people. The entire movie was shot in a beautiful village "Thengumarahada" on the banks of River Moyar in Nilgiris District. The first song video-graphed on Sujatha singing "Annakili Unna Theduthe" was on the Moyar river banks.

Thiru Panju's brother was the Producer of the movie and they took a big risk to introduce a young boy as a composer. This history later repeated in Tamil film industry. It was rumored that Raaja wanted LR Eshwari to sing the first or second song. Apparently, LRE refused to sing for a young MD and that too for the first time. As a result, Raaja hasn't used Eshwari for any songs till date. Raaja then requested S Janaki to render the first song during rehearsal. It was S Janaki's husband who insisted that she should sing for a young MD and encourage the boy in his future endeavors. After that first song, S Janaki and Raaja went to break all records to establish one of the greatest musical collaborations in the entire world. No one has kept accurate account of the number of LP records, cassettes, MP3 (legal and illegal downloads) sales of their musical productions as of date. We Indians are bad at keeping accounts and rest of the world doesn't know about Raaja's numerous Platinum albums. Thiru Panju still lives within every Raaja fan and may his soul be born again to create another music genius in coming years. Even though Thiru Panju was an accomplished artist, he is still remembered and written as the person who introduced a 21 year old boy to TFM.

Listen to Raaja's experience on how the first song in Annakili was conceived and produced.

[Russellmtp]

rajsekar, Raja was 31 in 1974.