Born and brought up in Mumbai, Suresh Wadkar’s talent was noticed by Parshwanath Digrajkar. He taught Suresh Wadkar for four years, after which he joined Jiyalal Vasant’s Sangeet Niketan. Jiyalal Vasant trained Wadkar in Hindustani classical music and also offered to take care of his formal education. Wadkar got an opportunity to perform across the country with other child artistes trained at the Niketan. During this period he also learnt the tabla. He graduated with vocal music and tabla from Prayag Sangeet Samiti, Allahabad, to which the Niketan is affiliated.
Suresh Wadkar also learnt to play sitar and learnt Kathak dance as well.



In 1976, he joined his guru’s daughter, Prem Vasant, to accompany her for performances on the sitar and also perform as a vocalist for concerts in Europe. On his return from Europe, Suresh Wadkar was invited by Sur Singer Samsad to perform as a classical singer in the Haridas Sangeet Sammelan. He also won the coveted Madan Mohan Best Male Singer Award and was promised a break in one of his forthcoming films by composer Ravindra Jain.

Since then, Suresh Wadkar has had the good fortune to sing for stalwarts as well as the budding music directors. He has received many a coveted award, including nine for Maharashtra, three for Gujarat, two for Punjab State Best Male Playback Singer awards, to mention a few. He has also received Lata Mangeshkar award from Madhya Pradesh and the Vikramaditya Award from Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh.

He has lent music to films. His maiden venture Ashi hi Dnyaneshwari won him the Best Music Director Award from the Government of Maharashtra. 



Suresh Wadkar has been a judge on various television reality shows and has been a jury member on many panels.