Sahasra Namam, readings from the Koran, kirtans of Guru Nanak have all been recorded since the 1900s until 1970s on gramophone discs and on vinyls until the 1990s. Gopalka points out that “If we put the other highly popular LPs recordings by MS like Bhaja Govindam, Vishnu Sahasranamam, Meera Bhajans alongside the Suprabhatam, it would make her one of the highest LP record artists pertaining to devotional music”.ĭevotional music recordings of all faiths are a huge enterprise in India. It would not be wrong to say that MS Subbulakshmi’s musical personality as a devotional singer flourished across the country with a growing celebrity fandom from Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan joining in.
The 20-minute Suprabhatam recording also went on to become one of the highest selling non-film songs in the history of Indian recorded music. MS Subbulakshmi’s recitation of the Suprabhatam was recorded and broadcast in 1958 on AIR and it changed the prayer and made it one of the “best loved prayers in India”. The Suprabhatam acquired its devotional anthemnal quality by the sheer magic of its lyrical beauty and the singing splendour of MS Subbulakshmi, points out Parthasarathy. As Kushal Gopalka, Mumbai-based musicologist says, “Most of the female singers then were devadasis attached to temples who traditionally sung praises to the deity like Thiruchendur Shunmuga Vadivoo, Coimbatore Thayi among others”. It was the time when many female singers took to recording songs for the AIR stations. He was deputed by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam office to teach the song to MS Subbulakshmi. The earliest known recording of this song was rendered by PV Ananthasayanam Iyengar who was a singer at the temple. According to Parthasarathy, it could have been the brainwave of an intrepid employee of HMV, the gramophone company, who was perhaps a devotee and frequent visitor to the Tirupati temple who thought of the bright idea of recording the song. The prayer song, the author reveals, remained an almost “semi-private recitation” before the shrine of Balaji for long until audio recordings and the broadcast of the Suprabhatam on radio, as part of AIR’s morning programmes, changed the nature of this song. From the Magazine Poverty Porn: Making Heroes Out Of People Just Struggling To Survive Poverty In Bihar: Government Numbers Hide Real Story How Caste Equations Continue To Shape Bihar’s Economic Fortunes A Trafficked Woman, A Young Hotel Cleaner: Poverty’s Children Of Kishanganj Street Diary | A Rickshaw-puller’s Take On Life And Lockdown