Music runs in his blood and when it comes to the ragas he takes to it like fish to water. This upcoming singer who grew up under the wings of eminent carnatic vocalists bagged the Asiavision award for best new singer. Grandson of carnatic singer Ommanakutty and son of Alappuzha K Sreekumar, K S Harishankar received the award for the song ‘Nilavum Mayunnnu’ from the movie ‘Ennum Eppozhum’.
Harishankar, whose first ever song in the movie industry was penned by the doyen of Malayalam literature late poet O N V Kurup, paid heartfelt tribute to the great man. “I feel lucky that I got the chance to sing ‘Katte’ in the movie ‘Karanavar’, the last song for which he penned lyrics,” says Harishankar. Nephew of the famous playback singer M G Sreekumar and music director late M G Radhakrishnan, he learnt the basics of music right in the womb from his mother Kamala Lakshmi who plays Veena.
A winner of many accolades right from his school days, the singer treasures the award as a dream come true. Harishankar was introduced into playback singing by his cousin Raja Krishnan. He went onto sing for Shan Rehman, Gopi Sunder and Bijibal. He says, “Working with each of them was a different experience and I could learn a lot from them.”
Deviating from his usual singing style, the singer tried something new for the song ‘Marhaba’ from the movie ‘Laila-O-Laila’. The playback singer, who is doing his degree at PMS Dental College, Thiruvananthapuram, says, “Being a playback singer has always been a dream. However, I still perform at kacheris all over the country and believe that classical music is the base for all singing. All the lead singers and musicians have a strong classical base.
Even singers from other countries come here to learn classical music.”
Harishankar admires singers Unnikrishan and Bombay Jayasree, since he finds them both give equal importance to playback singing and classical music. At present the singer, who is the lead singer of his band, is now at Muscat for a programme.