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| Music Director Satyam |
If you listen to songs like
kurisindi vaana naa gunDe lOna...,
idi teeyani vennela rEyi, madi vennela kannaa haayi...,
toli saari muddivvamandi...,
E divilO virisina paarijaatamO...,
madhumaasa vELalO...,
gaalivaanalO vaananeeTilO paDava prayaaNam...,
idE naa modaTi prEmalEkha...,
aaraneekumaa ee deepam kaarteekadeepam...,
EskO Coca Cola, teeskO rum, saaraa... ...and a lot more songs that one can keep on listing to make the point on the versatile talent of music director Satyam. Though his full name is Chellapilla Satyam, people know him as just "Satyam" or some remember him more as 'Dholak' Satyam.
Satyam was born in Ganavaram village near Parvathipuram of Vizianagaram district. His grandfather, Sree Chellapilla Satyanarayana, was a famous harikathaa bhaagavataar. He put a five-year old Satyam in music classes where the latter got his fundamentals, until Satyam later joined the tutelage of Sree Patrayani Seetharama Sastry (who was also the guru for the legendary singer Sree Ghantasala, and is the father of Sree P. Sangeetha Rao) in Saluru. Seeing his interest towards music, Sree Penupatruni Krishnayya (music director Adinarayana Rao's father) sent him to Kakinada to join the Young Men Happy Club. After Adinarayana Rao and Anjali Devi got married, Satyam started living in their house.
When Anjali Devi moved to Madras after she got a chance to act in films, Satyam went back to his village. By then, he met Indukuri Ramakrishnam Raju (later known as "Rajashri") and worked with him on stage dramas for some time. However, he was still not happy with that, wrote exams to became a karaNam and became the karaNam of his village for a while. His mind was still in Madras, though!
Adinarayana Rao started Ashwini Pictures in 1949 with A.N.R.'s partnership. They planned to produce the film
Maayalamaari and asked Satyam to come to Madras and look after the production. The film was released in 1951 and also marked Satyam's debut as a chorus singer. T.V. Raju was an Assistant Music Director for this film, and he graduated to become a music director, Satyam joined him as assistant. He became quite popular then on as 'Dholak' Satyam. He worked with T.V. Raju for eight years, mainly for most of the films produced on N.T.R's N.A.T banner, such as
Jayasimha,
Paanduranga Maahaatmyam, and so on.
Satyam got his first break with the Kannada film
Sree Ramanjaneya Yuddham, produced by Nayak (late actress Chandrakala's father and a big distributor then). Most Kannada films back then ran for four to six weeks at the most, but Nayak's
Onde Balliya Hoogalu that released on Jan. 26, 1967 was a huge superhit and was remade in Telugu as
Aadapaduchu. (
Onde Balliya Hoogalu also marked Md. Rafi's debut in Kannada.) Satyam held a record of working for 40 Kannada films in two years! Satyam's famous Kannada hit films include
Bhale Bhaskara,
Gandhinagara,
Kaasidre Kailaasa,
Lakshaadheeshwara,
Muyyige Muyyi,
Onde Balliya Hoogalu,
Sree Raamaanjaneya Yuddha,
Sarvamangala,
Sati Sakkubai.
