A brand ambassador called Victor Ratnayake

Channa Bandara Wijekoon

Creating a brand, bring it to the top of the mind of target segments and taking it forward is what brand managers do, all over the world. This article identifies the veteran singer and musician Victor Ratnayake as a brand ambassador.

Having seen Victor’s enormous potential at a very young age, M G P Perera (Ananda Perera’s father, leader of Shakthi) directed him to ‘Heywood’ (Government Music College). There, Victor mastered the melodious instrument called violin, apart from routine voice training. (In his twenties, Victor was a lean and tall average young man, with short hair.

He combed his hair upwards with a ‘bump’ in front, to comply with the trend at that time. Other than that, he was not a fashion enthusiast). While studying at Heywood, Victor got the opportunity to play his violin for melodies made by veterans, late Maestros Premasiri Khemadasa and Amaradeva.

He played his violin in the orchestra of Khemadasa’s. Thus, visiting recording studies and practising till late night or at times till dawn before going for final recordings, was part and parcel of young Victor’s life. However, he never missed his classes at Heywood, which he respected and worshipped. Constant practising was his motto.

He went through vigorous practicing sessions, practicing his violin and Raga’s of North Indian classical music and at the same time, trying to blend that with folklore singing which inspired him in his childhood. A budding young musician was in the making.

Influence and experiment

Listening to works of Sunil Shantha and Ananda Samarakoon and also of Amaradeva, with whom Victor at this stage had some interaction, inspired him to do experiments. In the process, Victor noticed some significant void between popular song lovers and classical song lovers in this country. While majority of listeners were fans of H. R. Jothipala and Milton Perera, few clung to Amaradeva, Shanthi Geethadeva and P.V. Nandasiri to listen to more classical type of singing, let alone Ananda Samarakoon and Sunil Shantha. Victor wanted to bridge this huge gap.

He wanted to cater to the in-between crowd, who were significant in numbers but less focused, and catered to. (In marketing jargon, this is called ‘Segmentation’).

At this stage, Victor got the opportunity to record his maiden song titled ‘Sinda Binda Mohanduru Papa... Dalwu Daham Pradeepa’. A cluster of radio listeners carefully noticed and distinguished this refreshing young voice between other known voices at that time and yearned for more songs from this upcoming young singer. Then Victor came up with an array of new songs, Mayurasana, Sihil Sulang Ralle, Soka Senasum, to name a few. All these songs became hits and Victor was already having a fanfare.

Although popularity was forthcoming, Victor was not satisfied by just being popular. He was determined to convey a more powerful message to his listeners.

Own styles

Victor wanted to come up with his own style of music and singing, which could also contribute towards identifying ways and means of introducing a ‘national music culture’ to his Motherland. Thus Victor blended his knowledge of North Indian Classical music and Western music with folklore singing, to come up with novel creations. These pieces of work, kept the listeners at the edge of their seats.

His magical youthful voice too was very flexible, when producing eastern and western styles of singing and music. (Meeting with R. A. Chandrasena the versatile musician, inspired him to sing western styled songs).

(In early 70’s Bruce Lee created his own style ‘Jeet Kune Do’ in martial arts and wanted to go public with that. Thus he made films and projected his style to masses. The Hollywood creation ‘Enter the Dragon’ projected a brand new Bruce Lee, with a trade mark hair style and attire; to blend with his fighting style. Likewise, Elvis Presley with his mesmerizing voice, blended with thick side burns and high collar attire of his, made history creating the brand called Elvis, and a tag line, ‘King of Rock and Roll’).

Victor wanted to create history too, locally. He firstly gave a facelift to his appearance. Thus the long hair, thick side burns (this was a 70s trend) came into place. His attire was designed carefully to project eastern and western cultures. Orchestra too had similar (but not the same) attire.

The one man show was given a unique name ‘Sa’, by his colleague Chinthana Jayasena. Chintana came up with the name in a ‘brainstorming session’ at the preliminary stages of the show. The orchestra was handpicked by Victor himself, which comprised of veterans in the field at that time, namely; Rocksamy (violin), Wijayaratne Ranatunga (tabla), Somapala Ratnayake (cello), Susil Silva (drums), M. W. Peiris (flute) and Aelien de Silva (Serpina). On July 1, 1973, the maiden ‘SA prasangaya’ was staged at Lumbini Theatre to a packed audience.

Victor could still recall the magic of that day. Some fans who could not obtain tickets had become aggressive enough, to crash a side door of the theatre to make their entrance. As Victor started singing the ‘Sarasvathi Sthothra’, the auditorium became dead silent. As the show progressed, the audience listened to their idol’s singing in a meditative manner. At the end of the show, thousands of Victor fans flocked with souvenirs to obtain his signature. Some damsels went to the extent of snatching his handkerchief to keep as a souvenir, let alone snatching his long hair. A star was born.

Building up the brand

In decades to come, Victor carefully nurtured and maintained what he had earned that very day at Lumbini Theatre.

He created the ‘brand’ called Victor Ratnayake over the years and brought it forward. The might of his voice, charming singing ability, musical ability and humbleness contributed towards this exercise.

His stage presence too, was very strong. A mere poster on a bill board with an upper portion photograph of Victor singing in front of a microphone, was good enough to attract thousands of fans to a particular ‘Sa’ Prasangaya in the metropolis.

Thus, Victor took ‘Sa’ Prasangaya to Jaffna. It is in a trip to Jaffna to stage ‘Sa’, the late veteran Premakeerthi de Alwis wrote the evergreen hit ‘Thani Tharuwe’. He was a brand ambassador; ambassador for his own brand called Victor Ratnayake.

Any piece of music/singing with the tag of Victor Ratnayake, were highly commended by the society and intellectuals and above all, they were in big demand.