Balram Parameswaran Iyer often credited as P. Balram or simply Balram is an Indian playback singer primarily associated with Tamil and Malayalam film music. He began his career by singing jingles for advertisements and television serials in the early 1990s in various Indian languages; his first jingle was for a radio spot for State Bank of India in 1991. He was discovered by composer Anuraag Shah while he was recording a song for a radio programme "Close up Sangeet Muquabla" at the "Ferrographers Studio" in Colaba, Mumbai.

Early life and education

Balram Iyer was born on March 1, 1961 in Mumbai, Maharashtra. His father, R. Parameswaran, was an employee at Philips. He completed his B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute and later pursued postgraduate studies in Materials Management. He showed an early interest in music, began singing at a young age, and received formal training in vocal carnatic music under the guidance of Mr.G N Balasubramaniam and Chadrashekhar Bhagavathar. Until 1996, he balanced a corporate engineering career with music before fully committing to a career in playback singing. He quit working at Skefko India Bearing Co. in 1996.

Career

Advertisements and television series jingles

Since 1991 he has lent his voice for numerous brand jingles in many languages. He has sung for composers namely Ashok Patki, Vanraj Bhatia, Leslee Lewis, Loy Mendonsa, Ram Sampath, Tushar Bhatia. Cover versions for Venus Records n Tapes

In 1992, he won the “Best Singer” award at Venus Records & Tapes All-India Khiladi contest in 1992.And was roped in by Venus to sing various cover versions of film Songs.

Albums

Balram entered the album scene in 2000 with his Hindi album Tujhse Pyaar Hai released by Deep Music where in he sang 4 solos and a duet with Sadhana Sargam. Another solo album in 2001 titled Khwabon Mein was released by Saregama. After his entry into Tamil films, he was also roped in to sing for innumerable Gospel albums in Tamil.

Playback singing

Before he entered the Tamil Film music scene he sang his first Hindi film song for Dil Mein, Dhadkano Mein from Nayee Padosan composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, This was in 1999. But the film got delayed and released much later in 2003. In the year 2000, Balram was called over to sing some backing vocals for Lagaan. September 15th 2000 was this important day in his career. Working with A.R. Rahman was like a dream come true. This was followed by his first Tamil song "Neethan En Desiya Geetham", a duet with K. S. Chithra mam, recorded on July 11th 2001.

He gained recognition for performances in Tamil hits like "Panikaatrey" from Run (2002 film), "Oviya" Kurumbu in 2003, "Dhavam Ondru" ABCD (film) in 2005, “Kaatrin Mozhi” Mozhi (film) in 2007, and “Innum Enna Thozha” 7 Aum Arivu in 2011. His Malayalam debut came with Gramaphone, where music director Vidyasagar (composer) compared his voice to that of renowned singer P. B. Sreenivas. Many of the Songs in Aamir Khan's Satyameva Jayate are in Blaram's voice rendered in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada.

Voice overs

Balram started doing voicer overs for Ad films in 2019. Since then, various brands such as Asian Paints, McDonald's, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Kwality Wall's have used his voice in Tamil and English.