Bombay Jayashri singing soulfully with her son, Amrith Ramnath, and Sudha Ragunathan’s melodious voice are not the only attractions of a new album of devotionals ‘Shri Gananaatha’, composed by playback singer and composer Srinivas.
With six albums and a couple of slokas, the album is dedicated to Vinayaka, the remover of obstacles. Each number is scored in a different raga and sung by a leading musician such as Sudha Ragunathan, Madhu Balakrishnan, Vijay Prakash, Manoo and Srinivas himself.
“Most of us recorded in our homes. We did not even see each other. The opportunity to compose the lyrics written by Vaarashri came out of the blue and I was happy to do it. The entire work was completed in 10 days,” says Srinivas speaking on phone from Chennai. He adds: “I have put in all my earliest musical influences into this album. The music I heard at the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple, the Kalyani raga that is played in the temple….whatever I remembered. I requested the nadaswaram player to play that in ‘Yaaanai Mugame’, sung by Madhu.”
‘Prabho Sri Gananatha’, sung by Srinivas, is in the Hindustani morning raga Bhatiyar. Jayashri’s song is suffused with the melody of Sopanasangeetham, in a mix of Kamboji and Reetigowla.
‘Thiruvilayaadal’ in raga Pilu has been rendered by Haricharan with nadaswaram by Mylai Karthikeyan, and Vijayprakash has sung ‘Vinayaka Ennapugendra’.
Sudha can be heard in ‘Veda Vilasane’, scored in Thodi raga. Vinayaka Chathurthi is being celebrated today in Kerala.
All the songs are available on Spotify.
