Singer Super Star of the 1940s and 50s! The One Supreme Voice of Tamil Cinema that Worried Even the Greatest of His Contemporaries!

T R Mahalingam was an extremely popular stage and drama artist with a unique and stunning countertenor voice in the 1930s. He was a contemporary of singing legends such as MKTB, SG Kittappa and at a later stage TMS. In those days due to the absence of public address systems, stage actors and singers had the need to train their voices for reach and clarity. T R Mahalingam apart from his training, was truly gifted in this area since he was blessed with a voice that had a tremendous range (from countertenor to bass) in addition to reach and clarity. His movie debut was in the year 1937 with AVM's Nandakumar. His first major hit was Sri Valli in the year 1945. Following his meteoric rise during the late 40s and the early 50s he had a downfall in his career during the mid 50s when some movies of his own production house failed to take-off. It was Kannadasan who gave him a break again in 1958 with Kannadasan's own movie Maalai Itta Mangai. T R Mahalingam has to his credit some of the most popular and evergreen songs of Tamil Cinema. During the later stages of his career he acted in several character roles and supporting roles. He immortalized the character of Bana Pathirar in the movie Thiruvilayadal. His rendition of the song Isai Tamil Nee Seitha in this movie is a Hallmark of the Calibre of Songs and Music produced by Tamil Cinema. His voice was so powerful it had even the Great TMS worried during the filming of the movie Sri Valli in which TMS had to sing his bit after a six minute high-pitched and powerful rendition by TRM! Read about this interesting bit and more here! The song presented here in honour of TRM is from the movie Amuthavalli. Lyrics by Pattukottai Kalyanasundaram and composed by Viswanathan - Ramamoorthy. Singers T R Mahalingam and P Susheela.