If I were to choose just ONE Telugu music director from the lot, I would, with no second thoughts, pick up mAma, KV Mahadevan's name. His full name is "Krishnangoyal Venkatachalam Bhagavathar Mahadevan". After the movie "manchi manasulu" with the song, "mAmA.. mAmA', he is fondly called mAmA by every one. He first got noticed in Telugu with the movie, "mundaDugu", made by Kongara Jaggayya in 1958 (though his debut film was "dongalunnAru jAgratta" in 1958). With ANR movies such as manchi manasulu and mUga manasulu, he started stealing the Telugu people's hearts and he kept on doing it for three decades. He successfully withstood a tough competition from S. Rajeswara Rao & Pendyala in the 60's, Sathyam, Chakravarthi & Ramesh Naidu in the 70's and Chakravarthi & Ilaya Raja in the 80's and remained as the ONE AND ONLY ONE long-lasting music director in the Telugu Film Industry for three continuous decades. As far as I know, he was the only one music director who was credited with a birudu (Swara Bhahma) in the movie titles.

All those years, he was accompanied by a loyal assistant, Puhalendi and there were a few instances where Puhalendi rendered the music in mAma's absence and still he insisted that the producers have KVM's name in the titles. Though both were Malayaalis and not completely acquainted with the Telugu language, they always took the lyrics first and then came up with melodious tunes to those written words. It is often told that mAma could even come up with a melodious tune for a news paper's editorial. kAraNa janmuDu, KV Mahadevan passed away on Friday morning, 06/22/2001 and Puhalendi too passed away in 2005.