WHEN SPB WAS INITIALLY REJECTED BY A HINDI COMPOSER BUT WON NATIONAL AWARD FOR THE FILM ULTIMATELY!

As the celebrities and the fans are paying homage to the legend, let’s jog down the memory lane and take a look at a few less-known interesting points of the singer. Firstly, the singer was an engineering drop-out.

Yes, he had enrolled in JNTU, Anantapur to become an engineer, but had to drop out because of Typhoid. He later joined Associate Member of Institution of Engineers, Chennai. He holds a Guinness record for singing the highest number of songs in his lifetime.

Did you know - he also holds the record for the highest number of songs in a day. The talented singer has recorded 21 songs in just 12 hours for Kannada composer Upendra Kumar. And the least known fact is that, he was once rejected by a Hindi composer but what happened next was unbelievable as he won National Award for the song!

Yes, during the music-making process of filmmaker K Balachander’s Kamal Hassan starrer Ek Duje Ke Liye (the Hindi remake of the director’s Telugu film Maro Charitra), composers Laxmikant-Pyarelal were displeased as they felt the “Madrasi” singer (SPB) could not accurately pronounce words from Anand Bakshi’s Hindustani lyrics. But, as Balachander’s condition was clear that SPB was to sing for Kamal Hassan, since the character, Vasu, was not supposed to be good at Hindi and pronunciation wouldn’t be a problem, the composer duo hesitantly agreed.

And as they say the rest is history, the following year, SPB received the National Award for the Best Male Playback Singer for the film. Wow, what an amazing soul indeed - SPB like his music, will live on our hearts too forever!