Echoes of the Maestro – Song 33 – Peigala Nambadhey

Peigala Nambadhey is a unique song, especially the Preludes, and I’ll come back to that later. The plot of this story was inspired by a real-life incident involving Kamal Hassan, where his domestic help attempted to kidnap his daughters for ransom. In an interview, he mentioned that most of the movie deals with his fears. Watching this film as a child deeply affected me and changed the way I see the world. Even now, I cry when I watch the scene where Kamal tries to rescue his daughter from a brothel and pleads with everyone to leave them alone.

Echoes of the Maestro – Song 32 – Pootukkal Potaalum

I’ve been rewatching some of the old Captain Vijayakanth movies for my Podcast and man what a ride. It’s like a Tamil saying “Oru Kallula Rendu Maanga” which allows me to revisit some of my childhood favorites and use them for the Newsletter and my Podcast.

Echoes of the Maestro – Song 31 – Ithuthan

The debut film of Director R.K.Selvamani, Pulan Visaranai, was also the first film for actor Sarath Kumar. This movie is based on the real-life confessions of the criminal Auto Shankar. While some of the dialogue in the movie didn’t age well, the song was a lot of fun to listen to, especially Raja appa enjoyed singing it himself. Oh! Do watch the Video song and Kuyili’s

Echoes of the Maestro – Song 30 – Janani Janani

Despite being an atheist and not particularly spiritual, this song evokes emotions that are hard to describe. I don’t know if it’s the music, the lyrics, or Illayaraja’s voice that does it. I stumbled upon this song randomly a decade ago, and it has been one of my favorites since then

Echoes of the Maestro – Song 29 – Thaalaattu

Achchani was released in 1978 and directed by Karaikudi Narayanan and the story is based on Narayanan’s Stage play of the same name. A couple of songs are very famous in this album and I’m pretty sure you must have come across this song too. However, this is the first time I’ve listened to it.

Echoes of the Maestro – Song 28 – Anaadhai Endru

Yet another song from Sethupathi IPS. The original song lasts for 4 minutes, but in the movie, it plays for just about 2 minutes. P. Vasu initially had Sathyaraj in mind when writing this story, possibly because of their previous collaboration in the movie “Walter Vetrivel”, where Sathyaraj played the titular role

Echoes of the Maestro – Song 27 – Oru Naal Unnodu Oru Naal

Oru Naal Unnodu oru Naal is the song from Uravaadum Nenjam directed by Devaraj – Mohan. This movie is based on the stage play Vilimbu by Shanmugapiriyan. He also wrote the screenplay for this movie.

Echoes of the Maestro – Song 26 – Vaanathu Poonkili

Jency Gregory has one of the unique voices and most of her songs in Tamil were composed by Illayaraja. You might have heard her voice but might not have known her by name. Some of her most famous songs include En Uyir Neethaney from Priya, Namthana Thamthana Thaalam Varum from Puthiya Vaarpugal, En Vaaniley from Jhonny, Kaathal Ooviyam from Alaigal Oivathillai to name a few.

Echoes of the Maestro – Song 25 – Vaazhkkai Odam Sella

When discussing the Tamil Film Industry, one cannot overlook Aval Appadithaan. This film was far ahead of its time and still holds a Cult Classic status. The film’s themes remain relevant even today, Simply put, as a society, we have not progressed and still treat women as mere objects instead of human beings.