Renowned music director KJ Joy (77) passed away. He died in Chennai around 2.30 am on Monday. He is a native of Nellikun, Thrissur. He has directed music in more than two hundred films. He made his debut in 1975 with the film ‘Love Letter’. Enswaram Poovittum, Kalithozhuthil Pirannavane, Kasturi Manmizhi etc. are the main songs.
He is a respected musician who has played accordion and keyboard for over 100 composers. In the early days, he started playing the violin for church choirs. He is one of the few musicians who can handle the accordion with the utmost skill.
Joy joined renowned musician MS Viswanathan’s orchestra at the age of eighteen. Joy, who used to recite songs while listening to them without looking at musical notations, worked as an assistant for more than 500 films for MS Viswanathan alone. Joy himself was the music direction assistant of KV Mahadevan who was prominent at that time. Joy made her keyboard debut in South Indian film music in 1969 and at that time played for more than 12 songs a day in various languages.
He composed music for about 65 Malayalam films like Lisa, Sarpam, Muthuchippi. Active in the Malayalam film music scene till 1990, Joy introduced a group of talented singers and lyricists. Joy’s interest was not only in composing music for films. He composed background music for about twelve Hindi films. Along with this, Joy also got to work with music legends like Naushad, Laxmikant Pyarilal, Madanmohan, Bappi Lahari and RD Burman.
