Under the influence of his friend Subhas Mukhopadhyay, Hemanta recorded his first song for All India Radio in 1935. The first line of the song was "Amar Ganete Ele Nabarupi Chirantanii." Hemanta's music career was primarily mentored by the Bengali musician, Sailesh Duttagupta. In his early life Hemanta used to follow the famous Bengali singer Pankaj Mullick. For this he was nicknamed as "Chhoto Pankaj". In an interview on television in the early 1980s, Hemanta had mentioned that he had also received classical music training from Ustad Faiyaz Khan's student Phanibhusan Gangopadhyay, but his tutelage was cut short by the Ustad's untimely death.