It was on a July day three years ago that Uday Ramachandran decided to call it quits. It was time to focus on music full time. For years, he had worked in hospital administration while on the side he snuck out to sing songs for albums and films. For a year, he went to Kuwait and became instrumental in setting up the first Malayalam radio station there. By the end of that year, he decided it was time to leave every other job and put all his time into singing. Uday has sung about 500 songs in films and albums so far. His newest is Rithu Shalabhame, a duet with Shreya Ghosal for the movie 10 Kalpanakal.
“There is another one coming, in the film Kaliyan,” he says. He comes from a family of musicians, and began his first lessons with his uncle Vaikom V. N. Rajan. But even as a child, he was more into light music than Carnatic. “The light music pieces I sang at the end of kutcheris were always more appreciated,” he says. As early as Class III, he began winning prizes for light music, back then for school kalolsavam. Growing up, he won more prizes. And he went to get his Gaana Bhooshanam, like every other member of his family.
“We have eight Gaana Bhooshanams at home!” he says. “It was singing Avani Pournami, a light music song that brought me some attention. Then people started calling me for singing tracks.” At first it was devotional album tracks and then direct recordings. Then there came the film song tracks. “I have sung tracks for nearly all major music directors of the time, including Devarajan Master, Raveendran Master, Rajamani sir, etc.”
It was musician Mankombu Gopalakrishnan who first got him to sing for films. Those were remakes. His first Malayalam original came through Doctor Innocent Aanu, singing Sneham Pookkum for Santhosh Varma. One of his most noticed songs is Kusruthi Kuppayakkara in My God for Bijibal. “I used to compose songs at one time. There were these title tracks I made for serials like Ennunni Kannan Urangan and Swararaga. But then I stopped doing that when I felt it might reduce my chances to become a playback singer."
