M. Ranga Rao

Early life

Ranga Rao was born in a small village in Andhra Pradesh on 15 October 1932. He learnt the art of playing Veena instrument at a very young age. His inspiration was his mother, Rangamma. He graduated in Diploma in Mechanical Engineering stream.

Family

M Ranga Rao was married to Syamala Devi and they have 2 sons(M Mahankali Rao & M Rama Krishna Rao) and 2 Daughters(Sathya Vani & Naga Lakshmi). His wife, Syamala, died five months after her husband's death, on Republic Day in 1991.

Career

Rao entered the film industry as a small-time actor in the films Swarga Seema (1945) and Yogi Vemana (1947). He worked as a veena player in the 1946 released film Tyagayya.

However, he entered the Kannada film industry as a full-fledged composer from the film Nakkare Ade Swarga in 1967. This also marked the beginning of the legendary playback singer S. P. Balasubramanyam, who went on to rule the playback industry for many more decades. Ranga Rao introduced (his relative) Balasubramanyam to Kannada films by offering him a duet song alongside the veteran singer P. Susheela.^[1]

Along with composing numerous songs in Kannada, he also composed a few in Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam languages, most of them being the dubbed works of his Kannada songs.

Death

Ranga Rao died of cancer on 2 August 1990, aged just 58. He was cremated in a crematorium in Bengaluru. He and his wife are survived by their four children, children-in-law and grandchildren.