Though "Kannatalli" (Pendyala Nageswara Rao) introduced her as playback singer in the year 1953 and all literature tells us that the mentioned movie was her official debut, I have heard her sing in a earlier movie "Pelli Chesi Choodu" (1952) and also a chorus debut (it was not uncommon for singers to have rendered their voices in a chorus as a background to a original singer, btw she had rendered many a one or two line vocals in her early 50s).

I extensively read biographies of both ethnic and western classical composers (opera , jazz) and also critique them (whenever I find some leisure on a Saturday evening), I am quite positive that her official debut was in 1950 for a telugu movie may be chorus or a full length piece). The movie had both Garikapati Varalakshmi and Akkineni Nageswara Rao. I will try to recollect from my notes, the name of the telugu movie. Could the Interview ask her about both the movies and confirm the info.

Also wanted to know her experiences with G Ramanatha Iyer and Naushad Ali as a composer, his style and what was the rehearsals like. The Rennaisance Period of TFM (1958-1968)

P Susheela is one of the most celebrated artists of our times and has sung a widely varied repertoire with all the major composers. She is a "Jessye Norman (the great american singer)" of Tamil Film Music.

The film "Karnan" has always had a high profile. Not because it was by BR Pantulu's production company, but for its vindicatory memoirs and nostalgic souvenirs of a golden era of TFM playback. Meanwhile, another tradition of northern style has flourished side by side with it. While slaughter and mayhem adorned the stage after the collapse of the film "Karnan", the music itself had emotional naunces to it and represented the attachment of ordinary folks. But neither house recognized the genius of P Susheela. The songs were full of new fluidity in the way of composition, arias, choruses and recitatives which were intermingled. Even the movie's partial sucess was obviously due to the arias, singing style of the soprano, choruses and relevant to the storyline, provided some consolation to the citizens. It brings back memories of French opera by Jules Massenet, Donizetti, Offenbach, Charpentier and Charles Gounod.

The songs by P Susheela are particularly effective in its schizophrenic changes of mood and shows her extraordinary ability to make something out of almost nothing. The song "Ennuir Thozhie" has seductive appeal and is cleverly married to well orchestrated and tuneful music.

P Susheela has worked with host of acclaimed composers from G Ramanathan/K V Mahadevan/ SM Subbiah Naidu/Viswanathan Ramamurthy in the south and Naushad Ali/Chitalkar Ramachandra in the north, her interest in rennaisance music has led to collaboration with many of the early music ensembles in particular Viswanathan/Ramamurthy. The song "Kangal Enge" from the mentioned movie stands testament to the same. I was very fortunate enough to receive the same in a mp3 format from "P Susheela Fans Group", a dedicated band of fans and enthusiasts.

Those were the days when music and poetry were partners, and recreated this alliance by alternating recitative and aria, thus bringing to life characters whose sensibilities take on a universal quality, in which the listener can find elements of his own experience. These were reproduced in the movie and shares with the same emotional intensity in the act of writing/composing of Kannadasan/VR, thus disclosing the existence of a purely metaphysical truth to which to inspire.

The richness in Kannadasan's writing also proved an endless stimulus and source of inspiration for the rennaisance composers, who emnjoyed exploiting all the descriptive possibilities of the supreme voice of P Susheela.

Composer Christoph Willibald Gluck once remarked (in preface to the printed edition of ALCESTE, 1769) "Your highness.....I have made every effort to restore music to its true role of serving the poetry by means of its powers of expression......".

In the mentioned movie VR and their mezzo P Susheela created a personal
synthesis from the different forms, styles and traditional idioms they encountered and quickly established themselves through the dramatic power of their composition and the raw voice of the mezzo, in which expressive urgency is unquestionably the dominant aspect.

I found the young woman (PS) is in a torment and suddenly in a position
which seems to allow her no means of escape other than to deliver the song the way it was meant to be a expressive emphasis not present in Kannadasan's text allowing her to immediately unleash all the pent-up energy in the the song "Kangal Enge".

You cannot hear her (PS) grasping for breath and they all lead recurrently to the howl of grief represented by the accented quevers for all the strings, and reinforced percussion and wind instruments. Th result is a continual alteration of emotions which finds a brief moment of repite in the central sections of the composition (for percussion).

If we accept that the music's essence is melody and the poetry that accompanies that, it becomes easy to see the comnnection between Kannadasan/ VR and P Susheela.

Thanks to all who energize me by posting some of the great works of the
" Nightingale of the South", Smt. P Susheela.