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

[rajsekar]

Life will continue... When Vairamuthu split with Raaja, fans were upset and both veterans continued their separate journey. During the peak period of Vairamuthu, Vaali did not have much work and he was left out by Raaja. After the split, Vaali rose to prominence. Same is true with Raaja and Bharathiraja and Ratnam. Both directors continued their journey with other composers. MSV fans were upset that KJY was being increasingly used in place of TMS during MGR days. When Raaja started in 1976, SPB and Malaysia Vasudevan took over the male vocal part. Same is true when MSV and Ramamoorthy split. As Ilayaraaja often quotes "Anything is possible in cinema world". It's literally true. Friends can become strangers and enemies can join together in cinema. Raaja had a fallout with KB over "Puthu Puthu Arthangal" release where KB wanted to release the movie before background score was 100% complete due to 1989 Deepavali rush. This fight led to Balachandar not choosing Raaja for his next directorial film "Azhagan" and in his own production film "Roja". The next split was between Raaja and Rajni at commercial level though they remain as personal friends. Raaja will never compose music for Rajni's films. Mano was introduced to step into SPB's role since SPB became increasingly busy with Telugu movie dubbing and playback songs. Raaja knew how to use everyone's voice be it "Nethu Raathri Amma" or "Vacha Paarvai". Malayalam music fans were shocked that KJY sang that song in another language so breezily. Raaja sang that song in his own typical voice and asked KJY to sing in the same folk tone.

I sincerely hope that the Tamil Film Composers Union and Nadigar Sangam led by Vishal will resolve this situation. Vishal is planning a grand concert for Raaja and SPB is being pulled in. Senior artists like Rajni, Kamal, Sivakumar, Bhagyaraj, Parthiban and many directors, producers and singers both know Raaja and SPB well. No one is ready to voice their opinion for or against this issue. Piracy and copyright violation is worst in Tamil films and no one cares about paying royalty or due recognition for other's efforts. The pending Madras High court case related to Raaja's IPRS petition should help in resolving this problem. In the meantime, let's all continue to enjoy the timeless classics of both Raaja and SPB. No one is going to stop me from hearing their songs everyday. Future live shows by SPB will be a problem.