Dr.Samuel Joseph (Shyaam)
Dr Shyaam was born in 1937 to a Tamil Christian family in Guindy in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. His parents were both teachers and Shyaam learnt music from his mother who used to play organ in the Church. He was passionate with the string instruments, especially the violin, which his father bought for him.
Shyaam started playing violin in some drama troupes during his early career. He was introduced to film music by the great M.S.Viswanathan, fondly called as MSV. He first played violin for Music Director C.N Pandurangan and was in the last row in the team. Later he made to the lead row, ending as a soloist. Thus he earned a good reputation as a violinist and had worked with many famous music personalities of that time, such as, V. Dakshinamoorthy, Baburaj, Devarajan, S. M. Subbaiah Naidu, T. K. Ramamoorthy etc. Noted North Indian Music Director, Salil Chowdhury used to rely on him and the relationship developed deep that he had worked with him in many Malayalam movies, including Chemmeen. He has scored music for over 300 films including Malayalam, Telugu, and Kannada, Tamil and Hindi languages. He has composed hundreds of Christian devotional songs which are popular among all churches in South India.
Shyaam emerged as a Music Director in his own right, for the Tamil film 'Appa Amma'. During these times he also worked as Assistant Music Director for Salil Choudhury, and he continued music direction for various Tamil hit-films. It was the popular Malayalam actress Sheela who introduced him in the Malayalam film 'Manya Shree Vishwamitran' directed by the versatile Malayalam actor Madhu. The songs in the film became super hits; "Kettile Kottayathoru Mutha Pullachan" in the movie was an all-time hit. Thus he became popular throughout Kerala. Since then he never had to look back and he started composing many films in Malayalam and other south Indian languages. He is one of the few composers in Mollywood who had worked in both the Black & White as well as Colour film eras. He is considered as one of the all time Best Music Directors in Malayalam film industry.
His work for the Malayalam film, 'Daisy' was very well recognized and, all the songs in the film were all-time chartbusters. His notable works during his active years are, 'Nadodikattu', 'Nirakkoottu', 'New Delhi', 'Kanamarayathu'. He is also famous for creating outstanding film theme music and his theme music for the film, 'Oru CBI Diary Kurippu' is popular even today. The 2009 Malayalam movie, 'Sagar Alias Jacky' Reloaded, has the theme music extracted from his movie 'Irupatham Nootrandu'.
He is married to Violet Shyaam, and blessed with two sons and a daughter.
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