Veteran music director of Malayalam, Sri K. Raghavan,celebrated his 97th birthday at Tellicherry last week. He was also awarded the prestigious N.C.Sekhar Award for his outstanding contribution to Malayalam music on this occasi
on.Sri Raghavan who started his illustrious career in film music with Ramu Karyat's film Neelakkuyil in the year 1954 went on to give beautiful songs in films like RARICHAN ENNA POURAN, UMMACHU, NAGARAME NANDI,KALLICHELLAMMA, AMMAYE KANAN, YUDHAKANTAM ....... .He formed a great combination with poet-lyricist P.Bhaskaran to give us some of the best ever malayalam songs. Music lovers are delighted to learn that he is to tune a song for the forthcoming film based on the novel BALYAKALASAKHI of the great writer Vaikom Muhammed Basheer.
I don't have many gramophone records of films with Sri Raghavan's music. But I have the record of Director Ramu Kariat's last and lesser known film, MALANKATTU released in 1980, presumably, after his death in 1979. It is poignant that the first film of Ramu Kariat, NEELAKKUYIL, also had music by Sri Raghavan. The film produced under the banner,'Universal Film India(P) Ltd., had Babu, Prathima and Shyamal Rao as artists. The record released by Polydor has two songs of Jesudas and chorus by Brahmanandan, Kalyani Menon. The lyrics are by Poovachal Khader.
Another record I have is that of the 1977 film YUDHAKANDAM. It has two beautiful songs by Jesudas,'Hriduraja Rathathil Sakhi' and 'Shyamsundara Pushpame' both penned by Sri O.N.V. Kurup. The regret is that I don't have the original dust cover of the record.
PS.Please click on the photos to zoom them
one of the earliest film i saw as a kid was Raarichen...........at Central Theatre (dont know if it is there) Mangalore. Remember to have bawled when I saw the elephant trampling the hut. My father had to take me out of the theatre!Another movie which I saw around the same time ( i saw it many a time later) was Mother India. Both left a deep impression in me. Thanks for bringing back those memories. Unni
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