[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":313},["ShallowReactive",2],{"person-en-milton-mallawarachchi":3},{"id":4,"title":5,"artistId":6,"birthYear":7,"body":8,"born":275,"description":276,"died":277,"era":278,"extension":279,"heroImage":280,"imageCredit":281,"imageLicense":282,"imageSource":283,"meta":284,"navigation":285,"notable":285,"path":286,"roles":287,"seo":291,"sources":292,"stem":311,"translated":285,"url":295,"__hash__":312},"peopleEn\u002Fen\u002Fpeople\u002Fmilton-mallawarachchi.md","Milton Mallawarachchi",88,1944,{"type":9,"value":10,"toc":266},"minimark",[11,25,30,37,48,54,57,61,88,130,134,148,154,158,197,231,235,241,244,263],[12,13,14,15,19,20,24],"p",{},"In 1969 a cashier in his mid-twenties walked into a studio and cut four songs for a small label called Exvee. They came out as a double set of 78 rpm discs — and they were the last 78s ever issued for non-film songs in Sri Lanka. One of the four was ",[16,17,18],"strong",{},"ඔරුවක පාවෙන රෑ ඝණ අඳුරේ"," ",[21,22,23],"em",{},"Oruwaka Pawena Ra Gana Andure",", \"in the thick dark of the night, drifting in a boat\". Karunaratne Abeysekera had written the words. Nearly sixty years later it is still the song people ask for.",[26,27,29],"h2",{"id":28},"kotte-the-sakyans-and-the-la-ceylonians","Kotte, the Sakyans and the La Ceylonians",[12,31,32,33,36],{},"Sumanasiri Mallawarachchi Don was born at Kotte on 7 April 1944 — the Sinhala Wikipedia gives 1945, and the ",[21,34,35],{},"Sunday Times"," obituary in 1998 said he was fifty-four rather than fifty-three, so the year is not perfectly fixed. He was an only child, lost his father early, and was schooled at Ananda Sastralaya, Kotte. His first jobs were as a bill clerk at the Welikada Co-operative and then as a cashier at Nawaloka.",[12,38,39,40,43,44,47],{},"Music was the parallel life. He played tabla, dholak, sitar and guitar, and began as a Hindi singer — a common apprenticeship in Ceylon then, where the Hindi film songbook was the shared repertoire of every wedding band. He passed through a short-lived group called the Sakyans and then, from 1965, the La Ceylonians. It was his vocals for the latter, on ",[21,41,42],{},"Daha Duke Vidyahala"," and ",[21,45,46],{},"Mal Ravamal",", that brought him to the notice of the producer Patrick Corea, who offered him the four-song session that became the Exvee record.",[12,49,50,51,53],{},"Accounts of that session differ in an interesting way. The English Wikipedia entry frames Corea as the man who commissioned the four songs; the ",[21,52,35],{},", writing the week he died, remembered the record instead through its makers — Karunaratne Abeysekera's lyric and the musician Mohamed Sally's tune. Both may be true; they describe different jobs.",[12,55,56],{},"Whatever the arrangement, the song worked, and radio made it unavoidable. In 1970, helped through the audition by the broadcasters Premakeerthi de Alwis and Ariyadasa Peiris, he was graded an A-class singer by the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation.",[26,58,60],{"id":59},"what-patrick-denipitiya-did-to-the-sound","What Patrick Denipitiya did to the sound",[12,62,63,64,19,67,70,71,19,74,43,77,19,80,83,84,87],{},"The person who shaped what a Milton Mallawarachchi record sounded like was Patrick Denipitiya — the arranger and music director who introduced the electric Hawaiian guitar to Sinhala music and who could write full orchestral scores, in Eastern and Western notation, without touching an instrument. Denipitiya gave ",[16,65,66],{},"ඉවුරු තලා ගංගා බැස යනවා",[21,68,69],{},"Iwuru Thala",", ",[16,72,73],{},"මා හා එදා",[21,75,76],{},"Maa Haa Eda",[16,78,79],{},"මා නිසා ඔබ",[21,81,82],{},"Maa Nisa Oba"," the modern, guitar-forward treatment that separated Mallawarachchi from the film-playback singers of the previous decade. Denipitiya was also the music director on ",[21,85,86],{},"Senakeliya"," in 1974, the box-office hit that made him the leading male playback voice of the mid-1970s.",[12,89,90,91,19,94,70,97,70,100,19,103,43,106,19,109,112,113,70,116,19,119,43,122,125,126,129],{},"Clarence Wijewardena wrote for him too. In 1974 Wijewardena composed ",[16,92,93],{},"ගණ අඳුරේ",[21,95,96],{},"Gana Andure",[21,98,99],{},"Eda Rae",[16,101,102],{},"මට මෙන් ඔහුටද කඳුල ඔබයි",[21,104,105],{},"Mata Men Ohutada",[16,107,108],{},"මඟ තොටදී",[21,110,111],{},"Maga Thotadi"," for a Gemstone EP, and wrote ",[21,114,115],{},"Awasara Natha Mata",[16,117,118],{},"සුලගේ පාවී",[21,120,121],{},"Sulange Pawee",[21,123,124],{},"Thaniwee Sitinai"," besides. In the same year Mallawarachchi sang ",[21,127,128],{},"Prem Raja Dahane"," with Rukmani Devi, and after her death sang it with Indrani Perera and later Samitha Mudunkotuwa.",[26,131,133],{"id":132},"from-the-last-shellac-to-the-first-cassette","From the last shellac to the first cassette",[12,135,136,137,19,140,143,144,147],{},"His timing was extraordinary. He arrived at the very end of the gramophone era and was still at the front of the queue when the technology changed. In 1976 ",[16,138,139],{},"මේ මැයි ගහ යට",[21,141,142],{},"Me Mai Gaha Yata",", produced by Melroy Dharmaratne, came out as an EP on Silverline. Two years later, in 1978, he released ",[21,145,146],{},"Sanden Eha"," on the Tharanga label under Vijaya Ramanayake's direction — remembered in Sri Lanka as the first Sinhala music audio cassette released in the country, a claim worth repeating with its attribution attached rather than as settled fact.",[12,149,150,151,153],{},"Song totals for him vary as they do for everyone in this subject. A Sinhala account credits him with around 850 songs across more than 35 albums; the ",[21,152,35],{}," said he sang in over a hundred films, while the English Wikipedia says he contributed backing vocals to nearly 150. Treat all of these as estimates.",[26,155,157],{"id":156},"the-voice-of-a-thousand-love-letters","The voice of a thousand love letters",[12,159,160,161,164,165,168,169,171,172,175,176,19,179,43,182,19,185,188,189,192,193,196],{},"He became a playback singer with ",[21,162,163],{},"Poojithayo"," in 1971, singing ",[21,166,167],{},"Sakwala Rathwana",". From ",[21,170,86],{}," in 1974 onwards he was the voice most often put behind Gamini Fonseka on screen, beginning with ",[21,173,174],{},"Reyak Upadda"," and running through ",[16,177,178],{},"මී අඹ අත්තේ",[21,180,181],{},"Mee Amba Aththe",[16,183,184],{},"කීන දම් මිටක්",[21,186,187],{},"Keena Dam Mitak",". At the 1984 Sarasaviya awards he was named best playback singer for ",[21,190,191],{},"Kendan Yannam",", from Sena Samarasinghe's ",[21,194,195],{},"Aethin Aethata",".",[12,198,199,200,19,203,70,206,19,209,70,212,19,215,218,219,70,222,70,225,43,228,196],{},"What the songs did is best measured off the charts. He sang directly to young people in the middle of romantic trouble — ",[16,201,202],{},"දෑස රිදෙනවා පාර බලා ඉඳලා",[21,204,205],{},"Desa Ridenawa",[16,207,208],{},"සැන්දෑවේ රන් වලා",[21,210,211],{},"Sandawe Ran Wala",[16,213,214],{},"සඳෙන් එහා කඳු මුදුන් ඉමේ",[21,216,217],{},"Saden Eha"," — in a light, unhurried voice that sounded like a friend rather than a star, and a generation used his records the way another generation would use text messages. A 2017 Daily News feature called him \"the voice of a thousand love letters\", which is about right. He also wrote songs for each of his four children: ",[21,220,221],{},"Ranil Puthe",[21,223,224],{},"Duwe Harshani",[21,226,227],{},"Pipunu Mal Dekaku",[21,229,230],{},"Tharaka Puthe",[26,232,234],{"id":233},"the-biggest-live-act-who-never-flew","The biggest live act who never flew",[12,236,237,238,240],{},"Before television reached Sri Lanka, the variety show was the only way to see a famous singer, and the Ceylon Tobacco Company's touring shows drew enormous crowds. Mallawarachchi was among the two or three acts who could not get off the stage — the ",[21,239,35],{}," recalled that the encores simply did not stop, and that he always obliged. He appeared alongside the Super Golden Chimes at the Super Concert shows organised by Clarence Wijewardena and Cheruka Weerakoon.",[12,242,243],{},"He never once performed abroad. Sri Lankan associations in Britain, Australia and the Gulf invited him repeatedly and he turned every invitation down, because he was afraid of flying — a small, human fact that quietly explains why a singer this famous left no overseas concert recordings at all.",[12,245,246,247,250,251,254,255,258,259,262],{},"He was, by several accounts, a serious cricket fan, and could be found at Colombo Tests whenever a touring side was in the country. He recorded to the end: ",[21,248,249],{},"Aga Rejiniya",", on the album ",[21,252,253],{},"Senehasa Biduwak",", was his last studio song, and he sang ",[21,256,257],{},"Sanda Sulange Pawee"," for the television serial ",[21,260,261],{},"Hima Kadalla",". Two films he had recorded for in 1997 were released after his death.",[12,264,265],{},"Milton Mallawarachchi died in Colombo on 10 March 1998 and is buried at Kanatte. His eldest son Ranil sings his father's songs on stage; his younger son Tharaka records; his grandson Pawan is a musician too. In 2013, fifteen years after his death, the first full tribute concert to him filled the Nelum Pokuna theatre.",{"title":267,"searchDepth":268,"depth":268,"links":269},"",2,[270,271,272,273,274],{"id":28,"depth":268,"text":29},{"id":59,"depth":268,"text":60},{"id":132,"depth":268,"text":133},{"id":156,"depth":268,"text":157},{"id":233,"depth":268,"text":234},"7 April 1944","The romantic voice of Sri Lankan radio in the 1970s, who sang on the last 78 rpm records made for non-film songs and on what is remembered as the country's first Sinhala music cassette — and never once left the island to perform.","10 March 1998","1960s-1990s","md","\u002Fimages\u002Fpeople\u002Fmilton-mallawarachchi.webp","Dinamina (Lake House)","Unverified — fallback source","https:\u002F\u002Farchives1.dinamina.lk\u002F2017\u002F03\u002F07\u002F%E0%B7%80%E0%B7%92%E0%B7%81%E0%B7%9A%E0%B7%82%E0%B7%8F%E0%B6%82%E0%B6%9C\u002F30767",{},true,"\u002Fen\u002Fpeople\u002Fmilton-mallawarachchi",[288,289,290],"Singer","Composer","Musician",{"title":5,"description":276},[293,296,299,302,305,308],{"title":294,"url":295},"Milton Mallawarachchi — Wikipedia","https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FMilton_Mallawarachchi",{"title":297,"url":298},"That voice, those songs — Sunday Times, 15 March 1998","http:\u002F\u002Fsundaytimes.lk\u002F980315\u002Fplus9.html",{"title":300,"url":301},"මිල්ටන් මල්ලවආරච්චි — සිංහල විකිපීඩියා","https:\u002F\u002Fsi.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002F%E0%B6%B8%E0%B7%92%E0%B6%BD%E0%B7%8A%E0%B6%A7%E0%B6%B1%E0%B7%8A_%E0%B6%B8%E0%B6%BD%E0%B7%8A%E0%B6%BD%E0%B7%80%E0%B6%86%E0%B6%BB%E0%B6%A0%E0%B7%8A%E0%B6%A0%E0%B7%92",{"title":303,"url":304},"Patrick Denipitiya — Wikipedia","https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FPatrick_Denipitiya",{"title":306,"url":307},"Milton Mallawarachchi: The voice of a thousand love letters — Daily News, 15 March 2017","http:\u002F\u002Fwww.dailynews.lk\u002F2017\u002F03\u002F15\u002Ffeatures\u002F110395\u002Fmilton-mallawarachchi-voice-thousand-love-letters",{"title":309,"url":310},"Milton Mallawarachchi comes alive again at Nelum Pokuna — Sunday Times, 6 January 2013","http:\u002F\u002Fwww.sundaytimes.lk\u002F130106\u002Fmagazine\u002Fmilton-mallawarachchi-comes-alive-again-at-nelum-pokuna-26915.html","en\u002Fpeople\u002Fmilton-mallawarachchi","9z15Ulq3LU2l83ouPGebZBomo1T54-jPdh5K0V8dNvc",1787999332711]