Hailing from Andhrapradesh, SPB comes from a traditional Telugu Brahmin origin. SPB tested waters even in acting. His sister SP Sailaja is also a noted singer. Born on 4th June 1946, SPB gained interest in music very early. He got to know about the flute and harmonium by his own interest. He nevertheless followed the wish of his father and did an AMIE course. During his engineering days SPB took part in various singing competitions and garnered several awards. Music composer S P Kodandapani introduced SPB into singing for films, since he was attracted towards SPB’s voice.
Sri Sri Sri
Maryada Ramanna
, a Telugu film, is the debut film (as a singer) of SPB which had music scored by S P Kodandapani. SPB made his foray into acting with the 1969 Telugu flick Pellante Noorella Panta. He worked in character roles in Telugu and Tamil. SPB worked as the dubbing artist for
Kamal Haasan
in most of his Telugu movies which were dubbed into Tamil. It is no wonder that SPB has several awards to his credit including, the Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri and 6 National Awards.
Nandamuri Balakrishna, the popular star in Tollywood, was received well by the entire South audiences with the movie, Sri Ram Rajyam. It is SPB, who dubbed for Balayya in the Tamil version of the film. Besides singing for the movies, SPB rendered his voice to the devotional music albums and the title songs for various TV Series. Nimmadhi Ungal Choice, Sondham, Sorgam, Vazhkai and Nambikkai are some of the series that got hit title songs with SPB’s voice. In 2010, he played in a film, “
Naanayam
,” as a businessman and his character was entirely different from that of the roles which he played previously. SPB Charan produced the movie. SPB had played in varieties of roles in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada movies and in TV Series too. "Jannal," a TV Series produced by Veteran director K Balachander was one of his perfect performances.
His latest film appearance was in the year 2018 with the Telugu film, Devadas featuring
Akkineni Nagarjuna
and “
Nani
” in the lead roles. The awards and honors received by SPB couldn’t be listed out on a single page. He had bagged a lot of awards from almost all the leading languages in which he worked. SPB’s latest hit song in Tamil is
Chumma Kizhi
for Rajini in “
Darbar
,” which released in 2020. He reunited with “
Ilaiyaraaja
” in “Thamilarasan,” a movie featuring
Vijay Antony
. Devadas Parvathi is a film, which has a song by SPB and NV Arun composed the music. In Telugu, Nuvvu Naatho Emannavo from the film Disco Raja composed by S Thaman, was a super hit in 2020. Of late, he had also crooned in Palasa 1978, Cheema Prema Madhyalo Bhaama, Ayyappa Kataaksham, Neekosam and Badugu Jeevulu in Telugu.
SPB was admitted to a private hospital in Chennai in August 2020, due to the coronavirus attack. He had also posted a video about his recovery. Soon, it was announced that he tested negative of Coronavirus and his fans had a sigh of relief. However, he suffered from breathing issues and had been on life support for nearly a month. Group prayers were hosted and people across the world, who love him for his songs and his down to earth nature, prayed for him to get well soon. But, his health deteriorated on 24th September 2020 and the legend breathed his last at 1:04 pm on 25th September 2020, leaving his fans, family and friends in pain. SPB will be remembered forever, not only for his songs and acting but for his sweet nature that tied everyone to him.
The Balasubrahmanyam Family Tree (Infographic Family Tree)