Sinhala Songs from a Bygone Era - 1

As you know, we have had long periods of "droughts" which have turned out to be a nightmare personally to me as the Blog Administrator. I am referring of course to "droughts" as far as new posts / contributions are concerned, and not the dreaded droughts which we have been facing in recent times - natural disasters.

I have been thinking hard as to what I should do to keep audience interest and enthusiasm alive during such times. I am well aware that at least some of you, even those based abroad, still enjoy old sinhala music from the past. I can name a few of them from the top of my head because we have exchanged private e-mails on the subject culminating in publishing on the blog, some of those songs which we felt were worth sharing with a larger audience. Among such batch colleagues are Speedy (Mahendra Gonsalkorale), ND (Nihal Amerasekera and Zita (Zita Perera Subasinghe) who are all Professional Consultants in their chosen fields (Neurologist turned Geriatrician, Haematologist turned Radiologist, Ophthalmologist etc.)

Even under that large topic, I count old sinhala film songs, not so old ones and of course singers belonging to two main eras, as distinct categories. Examples of each such category are: Mohideen Baig, Rukmani Devi, CT Fernando, Sunil Shantha, Nanda Malini, HR Jothipala, Sunil Edirisinghe, Milton Mallawarachchi, TM Jayaratne, Angeline Gunatilake, Sujatha Attanayake, Neela Wickramasinghe, Gunadasa Kapuge, Sisira Senaratne, Indrani Wijebandara , Clarence Wijewardene, Athula and Samitha Mudunkotuwa, Bhathiya and Santhust to name a few.

I propose to use them as "fillers" when there is a lull and all our regular contributors have gone into a shell. Sriani Dissanayake Basnayake has already gone into a shell. So are Lucky Weerasuriya, Razaque Ahamat for reasons of ill health. Then there are others who still remain active - Indra Anandasabapathy, Srianee (Bunter) Fernando Dias who contribute in fits and starts and the ever active Speedy, ND and Zita. Although he doesn't make any contributions as such, AHT Sumathipala hardly ever fails to make a comment under published posts.

Today, I start the new series with this lovely song "Mihikatha Nalawala" . The original version is by Sunil Shantha (his worthy successor being Ivor Dennis). But what I am presenting today is a largely unheard of version by a new singer with different musical accompaniments. It is from the Sinhala Teledrama called "Sakuge Kathawa". If you are not a Sinhala Teledrama fan, I strongly recommend that you become an addict today. There are also some very good TV programmes which feature new, emerging musicians. Look out for violinist Dinesh Subasinghe! All local TV channels could be viewed online by those based abroad.