HISTORY OF MUSIC IN COCHIN
Arabian sea roars all through the nights when one sleeps in the city of Cochin (Queen of the Arabian Sea). If you ever visit this southern city on the shores of the mighty Arabian sea, you can still hear the music of waves that hit the rocks and create a natural humming background to this chaotic city. The city’s attire used to be very laid-back style and with people who love art and music. It used to have lots of cultural festivals throughout the year with performing arts like Kathakali. Cochin is the city where India’s first popular rock band “13AD” was formed; It is the birthplace of the prodigal PadmaVibhooshan Dr. K.J. Yesudas. The city is very modern (center of fashion in Kerala), yet has tremendous influences on its inhabitants by harboring Art institutes like “Thripunithura Sangeetha College”, the first-ever institute established by the Maharaja of Cochin, to teach and nurture South India’s classical music and other forms of arts. In recent times, the “Kalabhavan” established by Fr. Abel, a Capuchin priest(alma mater) to nurture all forms of arts by inviting any talented artists from any social or economic background; there is yet a lot more to brag about for this City. The noted playback singer K. J. Yesudas was born in this blessed city and came from humble beginnings and learned music from his dad who lived at the heart of Fort Cochin. His ancestral house at Cochin is now a beautiful hotel. See below the lobby of Hotel Treebo in Fort Cochin, they still kept some part of his house intact.
The music of Cochin in the 70s and 80s is influenced by a lot by the Anglo-Indian community who live there happily in harmony with all sorts of other religious sects; which is the main reason behind Cochin being the first city in India to form a rock band in 80s. Isaacs family (Children of Emilda and Isaac) children played a key role in this revolution in the music of Cochin. Emil Isac (who was the lead bass guitarist in the famous Usha Uthup’s rock band) and Eloy Isac (charismatic rock band member of 13 AD) were phenomenal western music artists who lived ahead of their age. The band performed at the “Hotel Sealord” at Marine Drive, Cochin, and did concerts at T.D.M Hall, Ernakulam. We still can hear from people who lived and witnessed those performances talk about the genius of Eloy, the magical finger guitarist, and singer. The band dissolved when the lead singer ‘Glen’ (joined the band later) took a life-changing decision to lead a spiritual way by joining a new Christian movement popularly called “Charismatic worship” which mainly is a Gospel singing as the main form of worship.
13AD Rock band from Cochin (the Late 70s and 80s)
Jency Antony Illayaraja’s favorite female artist is wrongly mentioned all over the internet as born in Trivandrum. But to put everything straight, she is from Cochin, and her dad is basically from Ernakulam. She sang many songs with Illayaraja, Arjun master, all are classics.
The most other famous Cochin contributed to National fame singer is Minmini. She went to fame by singing just one song for A.R. Chinna Chinna Asai.
It is this much background about the local music happening in Cochin that a young Amal have come to know in the late 90s when he started singing in his school days at Chinmaya, Cochin. The rest of this feature is all about this beautiful singer from Cochin and a fine singing on Smule profile displaying a lot of potential and talent.
AMAL SHANKAR
Amal is one of the finest singing voices on Malayalam Smule sing; it is high time to write a cover for his efforts, but we were waiting for a perfect time of the year to introduce him on our blog. And here it is. You will see a lot of influences of western-style singing in this singer, yet he owns one of the unique and beautiful voices on the entire India Smule. Amal have absolutely the greatest voice and he is that singer who everyone knows him can say he can hit that highest note, yet we have to warn the young reader about this advice (Our voice experts’ advice can be found on a related blog here. “Even the greatest singers in the world can’t sing every note. It’s important to know your own vocal range and stay within it”. In fact, it’s often a tell-tale sign of an amateur singer that they reach for notes that are beyond their range. This results in missed notes and awkward strained sounds, and can even damage the vocal cords making it harder to sing notes which are in range!”
Ayath
Moh moh with his buddy Hrishikesh; As usual it is beautiful singing.
Adiye with a young aspiring singer Mukund. Amal sang this song flawless and AMAZING is the word here. This gem of a song composed by AR Rahman and originally sung by Sid Sriram. We hope A.R. sees this and gives AMAL a chance to sing in his next film.
Another A.R. Rahman Magic THALLIPOKATHEY with Ravi
Neeye with Parvathy Sunil
Lal Isque
Baharon phool barsao, a Hindi film music classic, was originally sung by Mohammad Rafi, here is Amal’s version. The clarity in singing displayed by Amal is absolutely fantastic and very similar to singers like Rafi sab
END NOTES
We wish Amal all the best for a great career in music and we love him for an absolutely perfect representation of all the influences and spirits of music from a great City of Cochin that blends modern and classical influences. We are sure you go miles with proper career moves. All the best. Keep singing.
We hope all our readers enjoyed knowing up and close this singer as we did while writing this feature. If you liked Amals’ feature please write your opinion below using the reply option and follow us on the main page welcome. Amal’s Smule profile may be followed at the link to his Smule page here.
Anecdote
Finally, we will leave with you a video of the old rock band 13 AD from Cochin here. You will be surprised by the genius of the children of the Issac family children Rex, Emil, and Eloy (the second row, first from left). We are hopeful the living members of this family take the torch and revive this group under the same name.
ELOY ISACS and see his mastery of Guitar
The great India Singers on Smule Sing 
