Sripathi Panditharadhyula Balasubrahmanyam, or Balu to his countless fans and followers in many a country, besides his Motherland – India, is one of the leading figures of Indian Cinema, more particularly, Southern Indian Movie Industry. He had held sway for years and continues to do so, as a top-notch playback singer, in films in many Indian languages like Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam the ‘lingua franca’, Hindi, Tulu, Oriya, Assamese, Badaga, Sanskrit, English, Konkini, Bengali, Marathi and Punjabi.

Balu has sung over a staggering 40,000 songs in films, private albums, TV Serials, which is a fete in itself. He is one of the most sought after “playback” singer of Southern Indian Cinema.

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Balu was born on June 4th, 1946 in Konetampet, in present day Tamil Nadu, then in Andhra Pradesh. His father, Sri. S.P. Sambamurthy was a fine musician and an excellent exponent of “Harikatha” (a fine art form of entertainment combining music and storytelling). Balu took to singing early. Blessed with a rich melodious voice, a fine range and timbre drenched with honeydew the sprightly lad sang in public while pursuing his engineering diploma.

While singing in one of the “talent-spotting contests” in Chennai, young Balu was spotted by the late film music composer, Sri. S.P. Kodandapani. Balu won the first prize and the enterprising music director gave the fresh talent a break to sing in the film “SRI SRI SRI MARYADA RAMANNA” (Telugu 1966).

He also got National Awards for his singing in films like “EK DUJE KE LIYE” (Hindi 1981), “SAAGAR SANGAMAM” (Telugu 1983), “RUDRA VEENA” (Telugu 1988), “GAANA YOGI PANCHASHARI GAVAI” (Kannada 1995, “MINSARA KANAVU” (Tamil 1996) altogether six which is a record. Balu won the coveted filmfare award for singing in “MAINE PYAR KIYA” in 1990, and the SurSinger Award for his best classical rendering in the Hindi film “TERE PAYAL MERE GEETH” in 1992. Balu also performed on screen and donned character roles with roaring success in more than 45 films in Tamil, Telugu and Kannda.

Balu bagged the Tamil Nadu Government and Andhra Pradesh Government, prestigious awards at least 10 times as the best Singer, best character actor and composer.