Palagummi Viswanatham Biography 
Palagummi Viswanatham was a well-known music director and lyricist of Andhra Pradesh. He was also known as a musician who plays veena. He was pioneer in introducing and popularising light music and light classical music among Telugu people. The song composed by him “Amma donga ninnu choodakunte” is a part of Telugu culture and Telugu speaking people across India. Noted Telugu writer Palagummi Padmaraju was his elder brother. He was a renowned artist belonging to the orchestra of Uday Shankar. He has composed nearly 15,000 songs and is known for his association with renowned poet Devulappali Krishna Sastri in All India radio. ‘Nadavinodininpalagummiviswanatham.com’ is the website launched for preserving his tunes.
He was born in 1919 in a village in East Godavari district, of old Andhra Pradesh. Since younger days he was influenced by his grandmother and got attracted to the world of music. His elder brother too, Palagummi Padmaraju a doyen of short stories has also encouraged him a lot to build up a career in music. He was initiated to Carnatic music by Marla Suryanarayana Murthy of Kakinada. He learnt to play veena from Eemani Sankara Sastry. He got attracted to this instrument seeing the artistic skills of Sastry. Later he got associated with the orchestra of Uday Shankar as an artist.
His association with all India Radio is quite popular among listeners of light music. He composed light songs for the poems written by Devulappali Krishna Sastri for AIR and their combination is regarded as the glorious era of light music in the radio station. The duo has also produced several ballets for AIR and many performers like Balamuralikrishna have sung for their light songs. Vedavati Prabhakar, Kalaga Krishna Mohan, P.V. Sai Baba, Hymavathi, Mohan Raju and Vijayalakshmi Sarma are the noted musicians trained under him. He has also mentored many singers like SPB, Balamuralikrishna and P. B. Srinivas. Ammadonga and Okkasari Mavooru Velliraavaali are his most popular songs.
Published: N/A
Updated: June 05, 2014
