app,
If 70s was characterised by great melodies which touched everyone's heart, like 'chitira sevvanam', 'kalai paniyil', 'kuyile kavikuyile', 'kannan oru kai kuzhandai' and many more, 80s to be was characterised by his fusion experiments. That is what I primarily think about when I think about Raja of the 80s. Ofcourse, it is impossible to put Raja into a slot but the predominant feature of the 80s which gives me great joy are these fusion experiments. Songs like 'pani vizhum malar vanam', 'andhi mazhai pozhigiradhu', 'poo malarndidha', 'poonkadave thazhthiravai', 'idhu oru pon malai pozhudu', 'thendrale nee vara kathirunden', etc. In these songs Raja very clearly shows the raga color and keeping the color intact he goes on to fuse various genres into the song. You can't strictly call these carnatic or classical type songs. They are the pinnacle of film songs, wherein every idiom is completely understood and mixed in a way that evokes awe amongst the listeners. I still remember two articles that the writer Sujatha wrote in winder. One was about the instrumental fusion that Raja does in 'Raja Parvai' based on Panthuvarali ragam. The other one is 'poon kadhave' where Raja uses Mayamalavagowla and brings in Bach one hand and nadaswaram on the other hand!!! Sujatha wondered how this was possible.
Coming to 'pani vizhum' Raja based this song on the ragam 'Chalanatai' and he faithfully follows the ragam throughout. Another music director, I think it was Bala Bharathi, once told on a TV show that 'Chalanatai' was technically what is called a 'vivadhi' ragam and that Raja had tuned in this rather difficult raga very well. He ended up by saying that this was not possible for anyone other than Raja. The very start fuses carnatic and wcm, where the violins play in the WCM mode but play a carnatic raga!! The drumming of course is top class throughout. The bass, aah, what more can you say. When the first sung once by SPB, the violins, synth, drums take over as if they cannot wait their turn. The first interlude has amazing fusion. This interlude alone would be enough to establish the fusion credential of any MD. There is flute, veena, tabla, drums, bass, synth, violins. The charanams also have the flute, the veena, the congos coming in and before he loops back into the pallavi the tabla shows the way with a flourish and the drums welcome the pallavi. The second interlude for all practical purposes is folk but it doesn't sound that way.
I know you miss the 'thullal' songs of Raja. For my part, I miss these type of fusion experiments of Raja. Maybe he thought that he has done enough in this style!! I am sure he can do it nowadays as well. 'kodamanjin' is an example but somehow he isn't doing too much of this style and instead concentrating on a more jazzy style nowadays.
