As A Film Artiste/composer/music Director
Like any upcoming young artiste of that era, it was also a struggle and a difficult thing for him to get the first major breaks as a performing artiste and more so as a teenager. So, he had a significant stint as a key Veena artiste, in film music from 1948–1962, when he worked in the South Indian Film Industry as a recording artiste, playing Veena for numerous background scores in movie soundtracks under the batons of many eminent music directors of the time like Saluri Rajeswara Rao, Pendyala Nageswara Rao, and the duo of Viswanathan-Ramamoorthi among others. A key element in many of the super hit songs of that time period in Telugu and Tamil, was the Veena by Chitti Babu
After having established himself as a Carnatic musician, Chitti Babu still had opportunity to associate himself with filmdom for a while.
Some of his key works include:
- Playing the Veena soundtrack in Director CV Sridhar's classic Tamil movie called Kalai Kovil in 1964. The protagonist of this movie R. Muthuraman was a Veena artiste, and the entire background score for the Veena was played and recorded by Chitti Babu. This movie received wide critical acclaim for its music and storyline and performances by the artistes.
- Playing the kriti "Raghuvamsa Sudha" as the Title Soundtrack for the very famous Telugu classical hit movie called Sampoorna Ramayanam directed by Bapu
- He was Music Director for Singeetham Srinivasa Rao's award winning film Dikkatra Parvathi (1974) - based a story by Rajaji and lyrics by the legendary Kannadasan. A song sung by Vani Jairam - "Aagaayam Mazhai Pozhindaal" was a popular number in its time.
- In 1979, he had also composed music for a Kannada movie called "Sri Raghavendra Mahime" that was also dubbed into Telugu.
However, the burning ambition inside him to continue to establish himself as an independent, freelancing solo concert artiste made him declare at a very young age – “Veena is my Mission in Life” and caused him to pursue a lifelong career as a performing artiste, a goal from which he never wavered for the rest of his life.
Read more about this topic: Chitti Babu (musician)
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