Santhosh Narayanan turns 42 today

Santhosh Narayan began his music career as an assistant to A.R. Rahman in Maniratnam’s Guru.

He made his debut as a music composer in Attakathi, the first directorial of Pa. Ranjith and the maiden production of C.V. Kumar’s Thirukumaran Entertainment. Santhish Narayan’s soundtrack had a freshness that was received with much enthusiasm. The little known singer Gana Bala shot to fame with the song, Adi Pona Avani reigniting the Gana genre in Tamil film music.

Santhoh Narayanan followed this with two more albums – Uyir Mozhi and Pizza, both of which were well received,

In his next soundtrack, Cuckoo, he had a different style and flavour, showcasing for the first time his versatility with tunes and orchestration.

SANA – as he is affectionately called – then introduced the multi-genre album, Jigarthanda, showing a willingness to deviate from the norm. This was followed by more fresh tunes in Madras and Ennakul Oruvan..

After a lukewarm response to the soundtrack of 36 Vayathiniley, he bounced back with the soundtrack to Sudha Kongara’s directorial debut, Iruthi Suttru which had R. Madhavan and Rithika Singh in the lead roles.

His songs in Kashmora did not fare well, but he ruled again with his arresting background score in Rajinikanth’s Kabali.

Since then, he has been consistently producing hit soundtracks, often exploring folk, traditional and Gana songs in a very creative manner. These were evident in the soundtracks of films like Vadai Chennai, Karnan, Sarpatta Parambarai and Kadaisi Vivasayil and the cirtically acclaimed Vaazhai.

He also proved that he was at home with modern soundtracks with the soundtrack of Bairava, Mahaan and his latest soundtrack – Suriya’s Retro.

SANA’s next film will be Karthi’s Vaa Vaathiyaar, produced by Studio Green, who distributed SANA’s debut film, Attakathi.

Santhosh Narayanan turns 42 today – 15 May.