Veteran musician Tabla Prasad, who worked for several films including many hits of Tamil Superstar Rajinikanth, died at the age of 80 on March 18. For the last 70 years he worked with four generations of music composers in the Tamil film industry. He has worked in over 60,000 songs across five languages including Tamil, Hindi and Telugu.
Several film songs with his Tabla performances have become big hits. He has also played the Tabla for famous Bollywood music directors including RD Burman, C Ramachandra, Laxmi Kant Pyarelal, Naushad, Bappi Lahiri. In the south film industry he worked with legendary composers like MSV and Ilayaraja.
Tabla Prasad has also worked for songs in over 2,500 films, including those composed by AR Rahman, Yuvan Shankar Raja, Karthik Raja and GV Prakash.
Tabla Prasad is the musician of popular tabla songs such as Bovoma Urkolam, Mathura Marikozhundhu Vaasam, Varaga Nadikkarai Oram, History of sixteen ragas, Poove Semboove, Muthumani Malai and Oru Naalum Unai Maravath.
He has also played music for the hit Rajinikanth films Thillu Mullu and Billa. Tabla Prasad belonged to a family of musicians. His father Jagannath Rao was a permanent Tabla artist with Gemini Studios in Chennai. Prasad started learning Tabla only at the age of seven and joined Kandasal’s troupe at the age of 14.
