His grand father was a court musician of the Swathi Thirunal Sangeetha Sabha.
As an instrumentalist, he performed with bygone legends like Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, M. S. Subbulakshmi, D. K. Pattammal, K. V. Narayanaswamy, M. D. Ramanathan, D. K. Jayaraman, Voleti Venkatesvarulu, S. Kalyanaraman, Sandhyavandanam Srinivasa Rao and M. L. Vasanthakumari.