OF GIFTED VOICE
The Life and Art of M.S SUBBULAKSHMI
By Keshav Desiraju
In English. Published in 2021. By Harper Collins. Hardbound. 500 pages.
Rs. 699.

September is the birth-month of the “Queen of Music” — M.S. Subbulakshmi. Come September and the music world is always agog with photos, nostalgic recollections of MS Amma. This September, MS was trending on social media too. There are several interesting books on the iconic musician that you can browse through in the library of the Madras Music Academy. And one of them is the very well researched book by Keshav Desiraju who was a civil servant, educated at the universities of Bombay, Cambridge and Harvard.

To quote some lines from the publisher’s blurb, “The book looks at her life and times, and the great musical tradition she belonged to and to which she brought so much, against the larger backdrop of developments in the world of Carnatic music…. Of Gifted Voice attempts to understand the music, the history, the artiste and MS Subbulakshmi’s incomparable presence.”

More books on MS in the Academy library are:

# M.S. The Queen of Song. Published by The Music Academy
# MS & Radha: Saga of Steadfast Devotion by Gowri Ramnarayan
# MS: A Life in Music by T.J.S. George
# M.S.: Vaazhve Sangeedham (A biographical sketch of M.S. Subbulakshmi) by Veeyesvee (in Tamil)
# MS Revisited: Tracing the Nightingale’s Music Journey. Published by The Hindu in 2016.
# M.S. Subbulakshmi: The queen of song. Pictures of Melody series by Lakshmi Devnath
# Enduring Music (Cover story on MS in The Frontline in December 2004)
# Song of Surrender: A Centenary Tribute to MS Subbulakshmi – An Anthology. Published by The Sruti Foundation.