SOUTH INDIAN CINE MUSIC DIRECTORS [OLD] –XI

  

MD VI    P. ADI NARAYANA RAO [30-11-1915 –25-01 1990]

Penupatruni Adi Narayana Rao was born in Kakinada of Andhra Pradesh in 1915. As a boy of six he started acting in movies. He donned the roles of Divine / mythological characters. He was a multi-faceted person who could write plays, lyrics, compose music. At the age of 12 or so, he could play many music instruments; later he became a music director and a film producer. As a composer he has made songs for movies in Tamil and Hindi. He had a movie-making unit Anjali pictures ; named after his wife, actress ANJALI DEVI well known in Telugu and Tamil screen.  

Like for many people then, Sri. Adi Narayana Rao too had his primary association with theatre as Drama artiste before moving over to Cinema. He has been an acclaimed writer of plays, lyrics and composer of music. He had been a part of different amateur troupes as playwright cum ACTOR. It was in one such group that he spotted Ms Anjali Devi –whom he later married. He had a long innings in movies in Telugu Tamil and Hindi. A coincidence was that he and the well known actor Shri. SV RANGA RAO began their work in movies in the same film.

A feature being remembered is that he could adopt Hindustani styles of composition in South Indian movies as well. He had a perfect mastery over the art of adapting to styles. It was his profound clarity on the nuances of classical arrangements and perception of alignments that elevated his stature as a music composer especially for song interludes and back ground scores in movie scenes. He teamed up with the then noted Telugu star Mr. A. Nageswara Rao in formulating the movie-making company ‘ASWINI PICTURES’. However, subsequently, he parted ways with them and established his own movie-making outfit the ‘ANJALI PICTURES’.

Adi Narayana rao was a commanding MD in Telugu and Hindi cine field. This is evident from the subordinate positions held by other MDs like TV Raju, Sathyam and Laxmikant- Pyarelal who had been his assistants for some movies.

Two of the Tamil movies stand out in our memory for AN Rao’s musical scores. These are ‘MANAALANE MANGAIYAIN BHAGYAM’ where most songs were well received of which ‘Azhaikkaadhe , ninaikkadhe’ was an outstanding number. Another social subject was ‘ADUTHTHA VEETTU PPEN’ which catapulted the fortunes of Mr. P B Srinivas as a play back singer in Tamil movies. All songs in this movie were phenomenal hits. His mastery over Hindustani modes of song composition came in handy for him to churn captivating songs in any language.  Our respects to Shri Adi Narayana Rao.

Prof. K. Raman