Dr Rajkumar - Remembered through songs Part 4

This is the concluding post of the blog. In the earlier posts, we covered songs from movies of the follow genres - Devotional, Mythological, Historical, Social Relevance, Social Drama, Musical and Romantic.  If you have missed the first 3 parts, you can read it here.

Before we start covering the songs in this post, I want to acknowledge the people behind the scenes who helped create such great music, whether it is the song writers, the music directors, the film directors and the singers. Of course, there are several unnamed people here who actually played the music such as the orchestra, the chorus singers, etc.  A lot of songs were also based on lyrics written by Kannada poets(Kuvempu for example) and philosophers/composers such as Purandara Dasa/Kanakadasa.

Again, this is huge list given the number of movies Dr Raj acted in. I have selected a few based on what I know.

Playback Singers : Dr Rajkumar, Dr PB Srinivas, S Janaki, Vani Jayaram, P Susheela, Ghantasala, Sheerkali Govindarajan, Dr SPB etc..
Lyric Writers :  Chi Udayashankar, R.N. Jayagopal, Kanagal Prabhakara Sastry ..
Music Directors : G.K. Venkatesh, C Sathyam, Hamsalekha, Upendra Kumar ...

Getting back to our main agenda, I have updated the chart below  with selection of movies for this post. I have classified all the rest of the movies under Family Entertainers. These include movies of sub-genre Thrillers/Spy Drama/Suspense, Comedy, Action, Sentimental, Re-incarnation theme, etc. Its important to remember that Dr Raj movies could be watched by entire family. In fact, none of his movies received the "Adults Only" rating by Censor board.

Music played a vital part in these movies also, sometime taking the narrative further or providing a break in the ongoing story for the audience.

Here is the updated chart with all movies selected in this blog for discussion.

Dr Rajkumar - Selected movies by Genre

Koutumbika(Family Entertainers)

Shankar Guru was one the biggest hits in Dr Raj's career. It was remade into several other languages. It had Dr Raj playing triple roles of Father and his two twin sons. The movie had great songs whether it is "Chinna Balalli ee raathri", "Love me or hate me", "Yeneno Ase" or "Cheluveya Nota Chenna". 

However, the song which was interesting both visually and was a big hit was "Naa Benki yanthe" which had the two twins in a jeep together singing this song (sung by Dr PBS and Dr Raj respectively).

Gandhada Gudi  was another iconic movie made with a wildlife background where Dr Raj plays a forest officer fighting against the sandalwood stealing cartel. It did not have many songs but "Arerere Gili Raama" and "Yellu Hogalla Maama" were really good. The latter showed again Dr Raj's comfort acting with kids. The best song from the movie was sung by Dr PBS which is "Naavaduva nudiye kannada nudi".

Dr Raj acted in several spy/CID(James Bond ..) kind of action movies in the seventies. While these were fun for the gadgets and glamour they included, one of the movies Operation Diamond Racket had Dr Raj crooning a complete English song "If you come today" which was played on the radio circuit in those times almost daily.

Another movie where Dr Raj played dual role with elan was "Daari tappida maga". He played the role of an elder absent minded professor and a cunning thief. Surprisingly for a movie of this kind, all the songs were very good. There was the devotional "Kaapaadu Shri Satya narayana",  the party song "Kannanchina ee mathali" and the mischievous "Naariya seere kaddha" . The latter song is my selection from this movie due to the audacious singing and acting by Dr Raj.

Couple of movies from the adventure/fantasy movies which were very popular were Bahaddur Gandu and Huliya Haalina Mevu.  Nice songs in both out of which my selection from these are "Mutthinantha Maathondu Gothenamma" and "Beladingalaagi Baa". 

Much later, Dr Raj played the role of a father of a teen Sudha Rani in the movie Devatha Manushya. He played his own age in this movie and somehow the fans did not like it as much as his other movies. The songs "Haalallaadaru haaku, Neerallaadaru Haaku, Raghavendra" and "Hrudayadali idenidu" were very popular. My selection is Dr Raj and Sudha Rani dancing to the tune of "Ninantha Appa Illa". 

The last two songs I have chosen for this blog are from the movies Akasmika and Jeevana Chaitra respectively.  Dr Raj sang "Huttidare Kannada Naadal Hutta beku" in Akasmika which is probably the most played song in Karnataka in the month of November or whenever he is introduced in any forum.  The second in this list is "Naadamaya" from Jeevana Chaitra which won Dr Raj the National award for playback singing in the year it was released.  Both are different kind of songs but it shows the repertoire of Dr Raj as a singer.

To conclude, there is no way a 4 part blog can do justice to the talent or legacy of Dr Rajkumar. Even as I wind up, I am still thinking of so many songs which I could not cover here. Maybe someone else will do or I might come back with something else !!

Also, I wish to seek the pardon of those whom I could not mention/acknowledge in these blog posts due to the lack of space or the lack of adequate research on my part.

I have created and shared a youtube playlist with the selected songs above. Please click on this link (will open in a new window).

I have to thank my family and friends for their encouragement and support in writing this.  This whole effort included about 20% of research and 80% recall. 

Also to the readers who gave offline and online feedback. I will take a break now but you never know. I may come back with something interesting in future.

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Thanks for reading the article and your comments/support. Hope you could relive the songs along with me. Let me know your feedback (positive/negative) with a comment below. This will help me plan my future blogs better.