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In the mid-Eighties, Manacaud Gopan was taking his first steps within the ‘ganamela’ circuit when one of many instrumentalists in his troupe took him apart and advised him to pay attention extra on Tamil and Hindi songs since his voice texture was much like that of S.P. Balasubrahmanyam (SPB). Since that day, for a lot of the previous three many years and extra, Gopan has been singing SPB’s songs on phases throughout the State and out of doors.
If one have been to take heed to one in every of his performances, with out trying on the video, one couldn’t be mistaken for assuming the voice to be that of SPB. More than mimicking his voice, he manages to seize the sensation of the unique track, be it one of many transferring tracks like Kaadhalin Deepam or the racy ones like Ilamai Idho Idho, which is his staple track to ring within the New Year in the course of the annual midnight performances.
“I used to sing for amateur events or for friends’ groups from around 1985. Three years later, I met music director Devarajan master, who took me in to be part of his music troupe. It was he who gave me the stage name of Manacaud Gopan. Though I began singing Malayalam songs, before long I was singing mostly SPB’s Tamil songs. I became known for it and event organisers sought me out for SPB ‘musical nites’, and numerous such events have been organised over the past few decades,” says Gopan.
Meeting the legend
In addition to his ‘ganamela’ work, he has been recording devotional albums, songs for tv serials, and albums of his SPB covers. In 1998, he met SPB for the primary time, when he handed over a cassette of his personal recordings of SPB songs to the singer. In 2003, he had the nice fortune of singing for an SPB tribute occasion for a tv channel, when the legend himself listened to the vocalist who sings like him.
“We became more familiar when he came to receive the Kamukara Foundation award. For the past ten years, I have been part of the SPB Fans Charitable Foundation through which he provides help to a lot of struggling musicians and others in need,” says Gopan.
For Gopan, the information of his idol’s passing is but to sink in, at the same time as he will get into the each day morning routine of listening to SPB songs. “We had plans to bring him here. I did not expect him to go so suddenly,” says Gopan.
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