S. Ramanathan (1917-1988) was a Carnatic music singer and musicologist.

He learned music from Tiger Varadachariar, Sabesa Iyer, Ponniah Pillai, and Sathur Krishna Iyengar. He received a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, where he also taught.

He had disciples who have carved names for themselves such as P.UnniKrishnan, S. Sowmya, Savithri Sathyamurthy, Seetha Narayanan, Vasumathi Nagarajan, Sukanya Raghunathan (veena),Geetha Bennett(veena and a renowned short story writer in Tamil),Banumathy Raghuraman(veena), Vidya Hariharan (veena and vocal), Vanathy Raghuraman, Latha Radhakrishnan (violin and vocal), Padma Gadiyar (veena), Thiagarajan/Raju

He also has composed many varnams and kritis, which have been popularized by his disciples.He also won the Sangeetha kalanidhi award(1985).The American ethnomusicologist David Nelson studied with him.

In 1981 Ramanathan released an album of Carnatic music, Navagraha Krtis (The 9 Planets), Cāturdaṡa Rāgamālika (The 14 Worlds) and Srī Gurunā: By Muttuswāmī Dīkṣitar (1775-1835), on Folkways Records. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.