Renowned music composer Palagummi Viswa-natham passed away on Thursday evening after a prolonged illness. He was 93 years old.

In a career spanning more than half a century, Palagummi (as he was popularly known) composed more than 15,000 songs and wrote the lyrics for a hundred of them.

He also worked for several decades with All India Radio, mostly in the pre-television era.

Palagummi Viswanatham ruled the AIR

Palagummi Viswanatham worked for several decades with All India Radio, mostly in the pre-television era.

At AIR, Palagummi created light music for a variety of shows which included features, plays, rural programmes and programmes for farmers etc. He also composed publicity songs for government programmes and patriotic songs during the Indo-China and Indo-Pak wars.

Retiring after 25 years from AIR, Palagu-mmi continued to be associated with radio composing for special program-mes, rerecording and judging shows. He received several awards in his lifetime, most of which were from the state government and included a Nandi Award for music for a television serial in 1992.

He also received a Hamsa Award for composing music for television film Rajasekhara Charitra.

Palagummi was born in 1919 in Thirupathipuram in East Godavari, the fourth among five siblings.

After losing his father at a very young age, he spent his childhood at Rayaku-duru, Rajamundry and Kakinada, where he started learning vocal Carnatic music after which he started learning the veena under the great Emani Sankara Sastry.

Palagummi began his career in the mid-1940s in Madras where he started assisting music directors for Telugu and Tamil films. He played the veena in the Malleswari and Peddamanushulu.

He, however, found his calling when he joined the AIR in Hyderabad in 1954 as a staff artiste. By the time he retired in 1979, Palagummi had worked with eminent personalities like M. Balamuralikr-ishna, D. Krishna Sastry, Sthanam Narsimha Rao and writers like Munim-anikyam and Butchi Babu.

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