Nightingales go down memory lane

Nineteen Seventies was the decade that set the breeding grounds for new wave of music, arts and movies. Music generated in the seventies era considered as evergreens and still rocks the music scene.

This was the scene in the whole world and it was not exemption in Sri Lanka too. The songs, music, genres, singers, films, actors and actresses and all kind of artistes were considered as the best of all times. Some of the bands burst into the scene in the seventies are still in action and their songs are rocking the airwaves after five decades.

The popular seventies band ‘Nightingales’ from Moratuwa is now getting ready to celebrate their 50 years with the remix release of their debut song ‘Balaviye’.

The band ‘Nightingales’ started in 1971 in Rathnapura, under the management of Nelson Senevirathne. The team comprised of Dammika Ranasinghe, T.D. Thilakarathna, Jothirathne Gamage, Upali Wataladeniya, Ranjith Alwis, Roshan Alwis and Lalith De Wass Gunawardena.

We arranged four songs to be recorded: ‘Due to my change of residence to Moratuwa in late 1971, I re-formed ‘Nightingales’ band again under the management of Nelson Senevirathna with the addition of few more faces to the line-up. It was a solid line- up and we were in to creating new songs, without doing any coverversions’ explained the leader Lalith De Wass Gunawardena.

The line-up included Dayantha Wass Gunawardena, Sunil Wass Gunawardena, Chistopher Fernando, Anura Aponso, late two brothers Devadasa and Biraj De Silva, Malcolm Perera, Ayesha Gunasekara and Christine Gunawardana.

‘In 1972, we cut our first disc with four songs- ‘Balaviye’, ‘Bambara’, ‘Ruwan Kumari’ and ‘Goviya’. It was recorded at the Sarasavi Studio in Kelaniya and was released under the Gemtone label (Visakamals)’ Lalith said.

It’s now 50 years since Nightingales started. To celebrate this, Lalith and the remaining members of the band went to the studios again to recreate their song ‘Balaviye’ with a modern touch.

‘We remixed the ‘Balaviye’ song with a visual version to give more current touch to our old songs’ he added.

The video of ‘Balaviye’ was shot in the locations in Moratuwa with some of the new and known faces in the current teledrama scene. Talented musician Lalith Anthony Perera of now defunct band ‘Simple’ was the main force behind the new version.

‘I take this opportunity to thank the following multi-talented musicians who have given me a hand on my long journey. My special thank goes to Lalith Perera, who were behind me for remixing, recording and visualizing of the remixed ‘Balaviye’ song. Also I have to mention John Derek, Kamal Perera, Nihal Fernando, Late Ronnie Leitch, Late Jayantha Sirimanna, Elfworth De Silva, Rolinson Ferdinando and Saman De Silva for supporting and encouraging me during my early day of the journey’ said Lalith De Wass Gunawardena, the leader and the main singer of the band ‘Nightingales’.