Jency… A rainbow voice of both Joy and pain blended

When you are happy you enjoy the music, when you are sad you understand the lyrics, I have read this somewhere. Same can be said to songs that are sung by Jency madam. Listen to her song when you are happy it’s a jolly good song, listen to the same song when are unhappy it sounds different. Dheiveega Raagam, Idhayam Pogudhey, En Vaanilay, Kaadhal Oviyam and many are the golden examples.

Few years back Srikanth Deva and myself were composing songs for a movie during when I was suggesting many reference songs for the situation. Coincidentally all the songs I suggested were sung by Jency madam. Then came the thought, why don’t we make her sing the song. After a brief search we found her, yes Jency madam was on the other side of the call.

She was quite taken aback by our request to honor our song by her God blessed voice. It came as a shock when we heard that it was almost eighteen years since she sang a song. Within few days she flew down and as expected, the shy natured nightingale enthralled us with her voice. A voice which is a companion to many loners… A voice which rekindles our memories.

During the break as I was torturing her to sing some numbers, she told me something about my father, Director Mahendran, that shocked me as a director, something that I never knew was the most important job of a director.

She said “John, those days, during the song recording, Mahendran sir used to come to voice room, and explained me about the script and detailed me about the character I was about to sing and goes ahead to explain the situation of the song and also the mood of the character I was about to sing. And also how he intends to shoot the song. Such was the input given to a singer not just the tune and lyrics”

Honestly till then I never even knew that many director’s did this…. or as a director, it is his duty to explain to a singer. In today’s world most of the time singers don’t get to meet even the music director or the lyricist, imagine meeting a director. The singers don’t even know which movie or director they are singing for.

No wonder songs of those days still so strongly lingers in our deepest of our memories no matter whether we are happy or sad.