National Award-winning singer P. Jayachandran dies at 80
Mangalore Today News Network
Kerala, January 10, 2025: Renowned playback singer P Jayachandran, known as the ‘bhava gayakan’ (singer of expressions) of Malayalam for his soulful renditions, died at Amala Hospital here on Thursday evening. The singer was ailing for quite some time. He was 80.
Sources close to his family said he was admitted to the hospital for about nine days but was discharged on Tuesday after his condition improved marginally. However, he was taken to the hospital again on Thursday after his condition grew worse, and he breathed his last around 7.50 pm.
The body is now being kept in the mortuaryof the hospital and will be shifted to his house at Punkunnam on Friday morning. The public will get to pay their last respects at his house and later at Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi. His last rites will be performed at his ancestral house Paliyam near Chendamangalam.
He is survived by wife Lalitha, daughter Lakshmi and son Dinanathan. The legendary singer, an ardent Guruvayurappan devotee, sang more than 15,000 songs in Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada,Telugu, and Hindi. Jayetten, as he was popularly known, worked with well-known composers in India, beginning with G Devarajan, MS Baburaj, Ilayaraja, AR Rahman, and Vidyasagar, in a career spanning over five decades.
A recipient of the national award, five Kerala state awards, and four Tamil Nadu state awards, the constant comparison with Yesudas—a colossal figure who overshadowed his contemporaries—was perhaps unfair to Jayachandran , who sang fewer songs.
His songs could stir up a wide range of emotions
Jayachandran’s genius was in his original voice that captured the very essence of each lyric, with his unique style of rendering cutting through all shades of emotions be it in the call-ofthe-dawn song ‘Suprabhatham’ that extolled the richness of Sahyadhri or the soulful song in ‘Ulkadal’ where a lover invites her partner to a shore she has never seen. His songs came to be known for their emotionally rich voice and amazing capacity to stir up a wide range of emotions, mostly layers of romance.
Born into the Cochin royal family to Ravivarma Kochaniyan Thampuran and Subhadra Kunjamma from the Paliyath family on March 3, 1944, he forayed into music by singing ‘Orumullappu malayumayi’ in the film ‘Kunjali Marakkar’ in 1965.
The musical brilliance of this singer, who did not undergo much formal training in music, was largely associated with his endowment to capture the emotional depth of the lyrics of the songs and go beyond the conventional interpretations of the ragas in which those songs are composed. The intensity of his voice certainly aided him in achieving this mesmerising feat in the musical world.
Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar and chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan were among those who mourned the singer.
“History will remember him as a singer who made extraordinary contributions in bringing the art of vocal music to the common people. Through his voice, the world recognised the beauty of the Malayalam language. The curtain falls here on a melodic wonder that captured the hearts of generations,” Vijayan said in his condolence message.