John Higgins bhagavathar who proved that the esoterics of Carnatic music is not beyond the ken of a Westerner.

Madurai Somasundaram, a synonym for method, melody and mime. A crowd puller everywhere.

Veena wizard S. Balachander who raised a storm of controversy in his last days with Chalakudi Narayanaswamy and Mavelikkara Krishnankutty Nair.

Nagaswaram giant Karukurichi Arunachalam, who made the S.Janaki song ‘Singaaravelane’ (Konchum Silangai), an immortal one. He had performed in Tripunithura and Ernakulam, showing his dexterity on the instrument.

Alathur Srinivasa Iyer (Telugu) and Aalathur Sivasubrahmania Iyer(Subbu), a Tamilian ,who combined vidwath and vyavahara, were ‘brothers’ only by their music. They were trained by Alathur Vekateswara Iyer , the father of the latter. They are flanked by Lalgudi and Mani Iyer.

Gudalur Narayana Swamy Balasubrahmaniam, B.A (Hons.) in Eng., endearingly known as G NB, who was a trail blazer and poet-composer, at TDM hall in 1956, with Lalgudi G.Jyaraman and Palghat Raghu. GNB has a bunch of articles to his credit on the Musical Trinity which are equally noted for the content and the language.

Chembai the bronze-voiced bhagavathar with M.S. Gopalakrishnan and Krishnankutty Nair .Vaidyanathan got a lucky break into the Carnatic music arena of Tamil Nadu because two mridangam ‘greats’, namely Pudukkotta Dakshinamoorthy Pillai and Kumbhakonam Azhagunambia Pillai played for the youth from Kerala. They did so to neutralise a titan, namely, Kanchipuram Naina Pillai who always slighted the two other Pillais openly on the stage with complicated pallavis, without showing the finger sign or Eduppu. It is said that he hid the Thalam with a part of his second- cloth. Unfortunately Naina passed away early and the then music lovers thus were denied of an opportunity to compare his might with Vaithy.

Ariyakkudi Ramanuja Iyengar, the architect of modern concert format, with Tripunithura Narayana Iyer Krishnan (T.N. Krishnan) and Palghat Mani Iyer or Ramaswamy from Pazhayannoor. Iyengar used to hold Mani in high esteem.

Pt. Janardhan who played Sitar with exceptional grace for many a Malayalam movie hit song, from 1965 to 75

Manjapra Deveshan Ramanathan (MDR), a graduate, who had a large following, with M.Chandrasekharan and T.K. Moorthy, a Keralite.