KOCHI: A lot of people are unhappy about the decline in the quality of Malayalam film music today, about the deplorable tendency to blindly ape Hindi and Tamil songs. There is very little of melody and an overdose of orchestration often drowns out the vocals. One of the major factors behind this decline was probably the demise of music director Raveendran, on March 3, 2005.
Raveendran tried his luck in playback singing (as Kulathupuzha Ravi) in the seventies without success and later dabbled in dubbing. In 1980, Yesudas, his former classmate at the Music Academy, Thiruvananthapuram, recommended his name as a music director to the producer of the film ‘Choola.’
In the next 25 years Raveendran gave us hundreds of evergreen melodies, firmly rooted in Carnatic music. He was truly the leader of a generation which took over the baton from legends like Devarajan, Dakshinamurthy and Baburaj. Raveendran is credited with the achievement of fully exploiting Yesudas’ potential, especially in the lower octaves.
Speaking to this writer in Chennai in 1999, Raveendran Master, as he is popularly known, said - “Dasettan’s dedication and commitment, even after four decades in the industry, is amazing. He is the epitome of perfection as a singer voice-wise, range-wise, training-wise, expression-wise and dedication-wise. I explain the melody and the situation and he listens keenly. When he renders the song, he fully expresses what I have in mind and often adds to it, often much beyond my imagination.”
When asked about his opinion of other singers, he said, “I have nothing against newcomers. I was the one who gave the first film break to many like M G Sreekumar, Biju Narayanan, Gayatri and Pradip Somasundaram. But no singer in India impresses me as much as Yesudas.”
Speaking about the need for classical training for a composer, he says, “Definitely it is a must. All film songs may not be raga-based. And one song may not stick to one raga only. Often you have to blend more ragas into one song. Only a composer who has classical training will be able to blend ragas tastefully.”
Raveendran describes his recording style thus - “I feed the basic tune into the keyboard and thereafter use it only as an outline, recording each instrument separately. I generally prefer to use original instruments like flutes and violins instead of depending on the keyboard for the sounds.”
It’s no wonder that today’s young singers mostly prefer Raveendran’s songs whenever they have to prove their mettle in the semi-classical rounds of TV reality shows. It is another matter that many of them fail to do justice to the songs and invite criticism from the judges. This is only because Raveendran took great pains while composing each tune and embellished them with intricate sangathis and cascading swaras. This way, their limitations, especially in the case of sruti, become glaring!
Being a trained singer himself, he was obviously able to compose better. But he rarely sang his own compositions in films. However Vidyasagar got him to sing one of his compositions ‘Sruthi Amma’ in 2000 and it revealed another facet of Raveendran. Raveendran Master’s compositions were Carnatic-based and intricately structured.
Yet he ensured that they would appeal even to the lay listener, without sounding too complicated. This was the secret of his success and this was also his stamp of identification.
Raveendran’s versatility
Raveendran’s twenty-year-long musical era can be divided into three phases. The first one is his entry with a handful of melodies in the debut film ‘Choola’. Thereafter almost all the songs of the great composer became a hit, irrespective of the success or failure of the film.
All the albums he made for Yesudas also became popular, like ‘Mamankam palakuri’, ‘Valampiri shankhil’ and ‘Kalam oru pularkalam’ from the famous album ‘Vasantha Geethangal’ released in the mid 1980s.
The second phase of his career virtually created a new era of melody with songs like ‘Pramadavanam veendum’ and ‘Ramakatha ganalayam’ from ‘Bharatham’. The third phase of this musical genius is characterised by compositions which cannot be categorized as classical or folk.
Meanwhile he gave notable breaks to the successors of Yesudas and Janaki - K S Chithra with ‘Pularkaala sundara swapnathil’ and G Venugopal with ‘Chandana manivaathil’. For ‘Amaram’, he scored immortal songs like ‘Azhake nin mizhineermizhiyee’ whereas for ‘Venkalam’ by the same director, he adopted an entirely different style with melodies like ‘Aaraattu kadavil’ and ‘Pathu veluppinu’.
While working with Lohitadas, this musical genius emerged with yet another entirely different style with ‘Moovanthi thaazhvarayil’, ‘Manjakiliyude’ and sweeter songs like ‘Deenadayaalo Raamaa’. When Ranjith assumed the role of director, Raveendran Master scored a handful of classics like ‘Kaarmukilvarnante kannil’ and ‘Aalila thaaliyumaay’.
Six long years after his demise, countless hits of Raveendran Master continue to enthrall. The list is a never ending one, but each of them bears his signature.