Harris Jayaraj

Harris Jayaraj (born 8 January 1975) is an Indian composer from Tamil Nadu. He composes soundtracks predominantly for Tamil films, and has also composed for a few films in Telugu. He has also worked on a few Hindi films that were remakes of his Tamil films.

He has been honoured with Kalaimamani Award from the Government of Tamil Nadu and the Life Time Achievement Award from Konijeti Rosaiah, the Governor of Tamil Nadu. Since 2001, he has won 6 Filmfare Awards South and received 20 Filmfare Awards South nominations. He has also won 6 Mirchi Music Awards, 5 Vijay Awards, 4 Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, 3 International Tamil Film Awards and Big FM Awards. In 2019, he was bestowed with the Dr. M.G.R. Educational and Research Institute Honorary Doctorate of Letters for his significant contributions to Tamil cinema music.

Harris Jayaraj was born and brought up in Chennai to Tamil parents. His father hails from a Christian family and his mother from a Hindu family. He studied at Krishnaswamy Matric School. At age six, Harris began his formal training in carnatic music. His father, S. M. Jayakumar, was a noted film guitarist and had frequently collaborated with T. M. Soundararajan, A. L. Raghavan, M.S.Viswanathan, Soolamangalam Sisters, K. J. Yesudas, S. Janaki, Shankar Ganesh, S.P.Balasubramaniam, K. V. Mahadevan, Malaysia Vasudevan, L. R. Eswari, Jikki, K. Jamuna Rani, P.Susheela and Malayalam music director Shyam. Following two distressing bomb blast incidents he became more religiously inclined and young Harris had to take over the family responsibility. His father wanted him to become a guitarist and made him learn classical guitar from Mr. A. Abdul Sattar.

Harris scored the highest mark in Asia on his 4th grade exam of Trinity College of Music, London. He started his music career as a guitarist under M. S. Viswanathan's assistant Joseph Krishna for a Malayalam film and he was paid ₹200. Harris could pursue his academics only up to High School, by then he always had problem with his attendance due to his recording sessions. Having been trained in classical guitar, Harris completed Grade VIII exams conducted by the Trinity College, London. Later he started playing keyboard and developed interest over synthesizers. For this there was no tutor. He then started programming with his Roland MC-500 and went on to work as a programmer under more than twenty five music directors in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Marathi, Punjabi and Oriya working in more than 600 projects till the year 2000. Until 2000, he worked under noted composers including Raj–Koti, A. R. Rahman, Sadhu Kokila, Mani Sharma, Karthik Raja, Yuvan Shankar Raja, Sirpy, Suresh Peters, Chandrabose, Shyam, Ouseppachan, Adithyan, Vidyasagar and Bala Bharathi. In his early years as a musician, Harris has worked in movie soundtracks and film scores of various popular movies including Muthu, Seevalaperi Pandi, Asuran, Indian, Aravindhan, Ullaasam, Ratchagan, Jeans, Padayappa, Poovellam Kettuppar, Mudhalvan, Taj Mahal, Taal and Kandukondain Kandukondain. While working as an additional programmer under A. R. Rahman, he composed music for various television commercials including a Coca-Cola commercial featuring actor Vijay. In his early years, he admired music composers M. S. Viswanathan, Ennio Morricone, A. R. Rahman, Salil Chowdhury, and Hans Zimmer.

Harris debuted as a composer with Gautham Vasudev Menon's Minnale. The album was well received, particularly the song Vaseegara sung by Bombay Jayashri was exceptionally popular. He received the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director – Tamil for his work in Minnale, breaking the 9 years continuous record of A. R. Rahman. The following soundtrack albums 12B and Majunu met with high acclaim and praise. He also composed for the Hindi remake of Minnale titled Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein, also directed by Gautham Menon. Most of the tunes from the Tamil version were retained in the Hindi version too, and only two fresh tunes were composed. He then worked in Lesa Lesa directed by Priyadarshan. The title track of Lesa Lesa was the first song in India to be released as a single prior to a film soundtrack album release. Harris made his debut in Telugu cinema with Vasu. He received the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director – Tamil, Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director and ITFA Best Music Director Award for Kaakha Kaakha, starring Suriya and Jyothika. This film directed by Gautham Vasudev Menon was a huge commercial success and the songs met with great critical acclaim. In its Telugu remake Gharshana two new songs apart from the Tamil version were added to suit the taste of Telugu audience. The song "Uyirin Uyire" reused as "Cheliya Cheliya" in Telugu and "Khwabon Khwabon" in Hindi had effective use of gibberish words which later became a signature element in Harris songs.

Harris once again paired up with director Jeeva on Ullam Ketkumae after 12B. The music was appreciated for its excellency and synergy with the atmosphere in and out of the movie. Director S. Shankar, noted leading director of Tamil cinema, paired up with Harris in his magnum opus Anniyan. It was the first time Shankar did not team up with A. R. Rahman. Shankar later mentioned that working with Harris was an experience. The soundtrack album received several awards including Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director and Filmfare Award for Best Music Director – Tamil. The next film he scored was Ghajini directed by AR Murugadoss, for which he received Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director. Critics noted that the album had "scintillating, party-hopping numbers", which resulted in a huge commercial success in audio sales; the track "Sutum Vizhi" crossed 20 million downloads and turned out to be phenomenally successful. Harris crafted a necessary classiness into Gautham Menon's blockbuster crime thriller Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu starring Kamal Haasan. Gautham revealed that he shares the entire script with Harris and provides input's from his side.

"Harris and I, when we work together, we put in a lot of effort. I give him the entire script. I give him inputs. When we sat down for Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu, I told him to do away with the traditional pallavi-charanam format in the "Manjal veyyil" song."

Harris once again ventured into Telugu films with a successful album Sainikudu. The music album of the film was released simultaneously in 10 chosen venues from five different countries. Gautham Menon who considers the music and background score of Harris as a major asset of his films, once again teamed up with Harris on a romantic-thriller Pachaikili Muthucharam. The soundtracks of Pachaikili Muthucharam are appraised as melancholic, lilting, mysterious, and alternatively catchy. Harris' collaboration with Jeeva continued with Unnale Unnale. The music album oozing with energy all through proved to be a cut above the rest. His next Telugu venture Munna had a good commercial reception, and the song "Manasa" fetched a Filmfare Best Singer Female award to Sadhana Sargam. With the following album Bheema, Harris continued his mettle with all the six songs. The track "Siru Parvaiyalae" used Pashto words in interludes. The album was praised for bringing up visual recapitulation from audio. Harris used a live orchestra of 84 members for the action cop film Sathyam. In 2009, Harris Jayaraj was signed in for Vikram Kumar's 24, which was to star Vikram. He was also signed in for the Malayalam film Yoddha 2, starring Mohanlal. But both films were subsequently shelved.