In 1952, he composed music independently for a Malayalam film, which was also dubbed in Tamil as "Nadigai". In 1955, he started to compose music for a Kannada film named "Sodari" starring Rajkumar (his second film) and Pandaribai along with H. R. Padmanabha Shastry. Since then he became a much sought after and one of the successful music directors in Kannada films along with T. G. Lingappa and Vijaya Bhaskar. He was showered with offers where he composed music from "Ohileshwara" (1955) until "Kalitaaroo Henne" (1963) in a row. GKV launched P. B. Sreenivos as a successful in Kannada films.