G. K. Venkatesh

GKV had a small part to play in AVM Productions's Mella Thirandhathu Kadhavu in 1986 in which he acted in the role of Mohan's musician father. His dialogues were dubbed by V. Gopalakrishnan. The music directors were M. S. Viswanathan and Ilaiyaraja.

Ustad Bismillah Khan was reluctant to play Shehnai for films during his later part of years. GKV got the Maestro to play Shehnai for lead character Appanna, enacted by Dr.Rajkumar in Sanadi Appanna (1977). The songs became chartbusters and are aired regularly on the Kannada Radio.

In 1974, P. B. Sreenivas was unwell on the day of recording of song "Yare Koogadali" in the movie Sampathige Saval.GKV proposed Rajkumar to sing the song and Rajkumar reluctantly recorded the song. Once PBS came back, they wanted to re-record the song, but PBS, being generous minded, suggested they keep the song as-is, because Rajkumar had done a phenomenal job.Thus it marked the re-emergence of the singer in Rajkumar.

A versatile music director, GKV used elaborate Western-style orchestration in his songs, be they of any genre. He successfully brought Master singer Dr. Bhimsen Joshi to sing for films Sandhyaraga (1966). Bhimsen Joshi sang again in the movie Nodi Swamy Navirodu Hige (1983).

He came back to Tamil films in 1964 for Thirumagal Films movie Magale Un Samathu. Since then he began to compose music for both Kannada and Tamil films.

He had appeared on-screen in the Kannada movie Kanteredu Nodu in 1961 in the song "Kannadada Makkalella Ondagi Banni", composed and sung by himself.

In the late-1960s, it is notable that Ilaiyaraja and L. Vaidyanathan were playing instruments under GKV's troupe, assisting to compose music.

During the fledgling days of Kannada film movement, he produced movies such as Ranadheera Kantheerava (1960), Immadi Pulikeshi (1968) in partnership with other artists. In 1987, he produced the Ramarajan and Revathi starrer Gramathu Minnal Tamil film.

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. Sreenivas as a successful singer in Kannada films.

He became a close friend to M. S. Viswanathan (MSV) while working under S. M. Subbaiah Naidu during the late-1940s. They shared the same room in Jupiter Lodge, Madras when MSV was offered to compose some songs for Genoa. When N. S. Krishnan offered an opportunity to M. S. Viswanathan and T. K. Ramamoorthy to compose music for Panam (1952) for Madras Pictures, GKV became a part of their troupe. He had a chance to sing Ezhayin Kovilai Naadinaen in Panam which was also Sivaji Ganesan's second film. He was named as their assistant by Viswanathan–Ramamoorthy.

Gurusala Krishnadas Venkatesh (21 September 1927 – 17 November 1993) was an Indian film score composer who primarily worked in Kannada cinema during the 1960s, 1970s and until the late-1980s. He also composed music for Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil films. He produced numerous master pieces of Kannada film music and also brought in Western background score into Kannada films and scored music for all Bond movies of Rajkumar in the 1960s to 1970s.