The music director, Sathyam was very popular in the 70's and he is best known for some of the best Telugu melodies during the 70's. Chellapilla Sathyanarayana Rao was born in Parvathipuram, Srikakulam dt. Along with Rajasri (the dubbing lyricist) and a few other friends, he used to act in some plays in Vijayanagaram before he came into films. Like some of the great filmy people, he too ran away from home to Madras and then joined Adinarayana Rao's orchestra. Later he worked as an assistant to TV Raju (who in turn had worked as an assistant to Adinarayana Rao).

His official debut as a full fledged music director is "pAla manasulu" in 1967, though he was credited as a music director in 1963 with NTR's "savati koDuku" movie. Like RD Burman in the Hindi film industry, Sathyam brought a revolutionary change in the Telugu music starting from the late 60's with some fast beat cabaret songs and some best melodious songs at the same time. On many occasions, SP Balu paid his humble tributes to Sathyam for giving him some of the best songs that shaped up his career. Starting from the early 80's, he gradually lost competition to Chakravarthi and he slowly went into oblivion at the fag end of his career. His last movie, ankuSam was released after his demise in 1989.

Unfortunately, he never got due recognition that he truely deserved (unlike KV Mahadevan and Ramesh Naidu). He was equally popular in Kannada as well. Being his hardcore fan, I want to refresh your memory with some of his best songs on this page. Enjoy the songs and let me know if I am missing any other mellifluous melodies of this great un-sung hero.