In a shocking controversy versatile singer S P Balasubrahmanyam in his Facebook post claimed that he had received a legal notice from music director Ilayaraaja's attorney for singing the songs composed by 'Maestro' Ilayaraja at various concerts.
S P Balasubrahmanyam's Facebook post reads "Couple of days back, an Attorney representing Shri.Iliayaraaja, sent legal notices to me, Smt.Chithra, Charan, organisers of the concerts in different cities and the managements of all the venues, which says that we are not supposed to perform compositions of Shri.Iliayaraaja without his permission, if so, it is breaking the copyright law and have to pay huge financial penalties and face legal action. Let me say, I am ignorant of these legalities."
He further stated that his son Charan designed the world tour which kickstarted at SPB50 concert tour in August in Toronto after which they performed in Russia, Lankan, Malaysia, Singapore, Dubai and numerous shows in India as well.
"I did not get any feelers from Shri. Raaja's office at that time. I don't know why now when we started our US tour. As I said earlier, I am ignorant of the law. If it is a law, so be it and I obey it," he said.
Balasubrahmanyam asserted that the music tour will continue and he will be rendering the songs he had sung for other music directors.
SPB, as he is fondly called by his fans, made his singing debut way back in 1966 for the Telugu film Sri Sri Sri Maryada Ramanna. Since then he has ruled the hearts of music lovers across the country for over five decades singing over 40,000 songs in many languages including Tamil, Hindi, Kannada and Telugu. He was also honored with the Padma Bhushan in 2011 and also received the prestigious national award on multiple occasions.
Balasubrahmanyam-Illayaraja is one of the most loved combos of music lovers and some of their hit collaborations include Sangeetha Megam from Udaya Geetham (1985), Mannil Indha from Keladi Kanmani (1990), Sundari from Thalapathy (1991), Anjali Anjali from Duet (1994) and Konji Konji from Veera (1994).
Read SP Balasubrahmanyam's complete Facebook post below: