Aemala Manmadharaju Rajah (popularly known as A. M. Rajah) was an
Indian playback singer and music director. His songs were featured in
numerous Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada in the 1950s, early
1960s and early 1970s. He also sang in a few Hindi and Sinhalese films
during this period. He also composed music for several films.A. M.
Rajah was born on 1 July 1929 in Renukapuram village in Chittoor
District in present-day Andhra Pradesh to Manmadharaju and Lakshmamma.
His father died when he was three months old and then the family moved
to Renukapuram and Madras (Chennai) later. His tertiary education was
at Pachaiyappa's College from where he graduated with a B.A. Degree.
By this time, Rajah was an accomplished piano player and had won
several prizes in singing competitions. He was well versed in Carnatic
Music and Western Classical Music. He was also highly influenced by
the Hindi and Gazal music and was then the only answer from the South
to North Indian singers like Talat Mehmood, Mukesh, Mohammed Rafi and
Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay in the 1950s.During his University days,
Rajah wrote, composed and sang two songs in his mother tongue, Telugu,
with the instrumental support of the music director K. V. Mahadevan
for HMV which were broadcast by All India Radio. Gemini Studios boss
S. S. Vasan listened to these songs and, impressed, booked him for his
next film, Samsaram (1951) with the approval of his music director,
Emani Sankara Sastry, and also his good friend Kalki Krishnamurthy. By
this time Rajah was also already recording songs for the films
Rajambal (for R. S. Manohar, incidentally his senior in the
University) with P. Leela and Kumaari (for M. G. Ramachandran) with
Jikki for music composers M. S. Gnanamani and K. V. Mahadevan
respectively. Rajah, with instant popularity after the Samsaram songs
came on the air, went on to sing in various languages, including Hindi
and was the uncrowned prince of the South in the early and
mid-1950s.[citation needed] He was equally successful in Telugu,
Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada films. A. M. Rajah Top Movies & Young Movies