[4][5] Yesudas is estimated to have recorded more than 50,000 songs[6] in various Indian languages, including Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Tulu, Hindi, Odia,[7] Bengali, Marathi as well as Arabic, English, Latin, and Russian, in a career spanning six decades.

In 2006, he sang 16 film songs in four South Indian languages on the same day at AVM Studio, Chennai.

For a brief period, he also studied music under Vechoor Harihara Subramania Iyer, after which he took advanced training from Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar.

[20] Yesudas recorded his first popular song Jaathi Bhedam Matha Dwesham (music: M. B. Sreenivasan) on 14 November 1961.

The singer considers those four lines he got to sing to start his career in films as a huge blessing as it was written by none other than Sree Narayana Guru, the most respected saint-poet-social reformer of Kerala.

After the initial years he became the most sought after by established music directors of that time, M. B. Sreenivasan, G. Devarajan, V. Dakshinamoorthy, Br Lakshmanan, M. S. Baburaj and many others.

Thus began his career in playback singing which included the Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada movies thereafter.

[3] He got the first major break with the hit Malayalam film named Bharya ( music by G. Devarajan and lyrics by Vayalar Ramavarma).

In 1965, he was invited by the Soviet Union government to perform at music concerts in various cities in the USSR and also sang a Russian song over Radio Kazakhstan.

He has sung many evergreen Hindi film songs for music directors including Ravindra Jain, Bappi Lahiri, Khayyam, Raj Kamal and Salil Chowdhury.

On 14 November 1999, Yesudas was presented with an honorary award by UNESCO for "Outstanding Achievements in Music and Peace" at the "Music for Peace" event in Paris, a concert held to mark the dawn of the new millennium and whose attendees included artistes such as Lionel Richie, Ray Charles, Montserrat Caballé, and Zubin Mehta.

[22] In 2001 he sang for album Ahimsa in Sanskrit, Latin and English and in a mix of styles including new-age and Carnatic.

Their second son, Vijay, is a musician who won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer in 2007, 2012 and 2018.

[28] Sree Narayana Guru's message, "One religion and One God for all humanity", influenced young Yesudas in his dealings with his fellow men.

Harivarasanam, a devotional song musical version composed by G. Devarajan, recited before closing the temple at Sabarimala was sung by Yesudas.

The studio continues to produce and present events of Yesudas, both for film and Indian classical music concerts throughout the world.

Ravindra Jain, in an interview wherein the blind music director confessed that if ever he happened to regain vision, the first person he would like to see would be Yesudas.

In 2003, billionaire and businessman B. R. Shetty gifted him his 1992 model Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit after listening his concert held at The Indian High School, Dubai.

"[51] Several books were published about Yesudas - his autobiography, biography, music journeys, studies on his songs, photos, interviews, memoirs etc.

Some includes: On 2 October 2014, Yesudas sparked a row while speaking at a public function on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, where he stated that "Women should not wear dress that trouble others.