
As so often, George Harrison put it most profoundly. “The
first person who ever impressed me in my life was Ravi Shankar, and he
was the only person who didn’t try to impress me.”
The
master Indian musician, who did more to introduce the music and culture
of his home land than almost any other, would have been 96 years old
today, born on April 7, 1920. We might add, in his spirit of breaking
down barriers between different backgrounds, that he came into the world
in Varanasi, sometimes called “the Athens of India,” on the day that
that Billie Holiday turned five.

In the ‘40s, Shankar wrote ballet music, recorded for HMV India and
was music director at AIR, All India Radio, now blending the music of
east and west in his compositions and playing. He travelled to London to
record his first album, ‘Three Ragas,’ released in 1956, and, as he
toured in Europe and elsewhere, expanded his horizons even further by
writing for non-Indian films.
It was the Byrds who were the first Western pop-rock group to hear
Ravi’s music, and pass it on to their friend George Harrison. The effect
on the deep-thinking George, already in search of spiritual
enlightenment, was immediate and profound. He was playing sitar, on the
Beatles’ ‘Rubber Soul’ track ‘Norwegian Wood,’ by late 1965, before the
pair even met.

The pair remained friends for the rest of George’s life, and the
association with such a famous pop musician had a great benefit on
Shankar’s own work. His 1967 LP ‘West Meets East,’ with another of his
great collaborators, Yehudi Menuhin, won a Grammy for Best Chamber Music
Album and he had three more US chart records in 1967 and ’68, and
another in 1973. He added further to the cultural marriage by playing at
Woodstock in 1969, and at Harrison’s Concert For Bangla Desh in 1971.
When Harrison formed his Dark Horse label, he brought Ravi and his
family group to the fold, producing their 1974 album ‘Shankar Family
& Friends.’ The Indian musician’s achievements continued to be
numerous and awe-inspiring, including playing in the White House and
composing original music for the 1982 film ‘Gandhi,’ which brought an
Oscar nomination.
Shankar also brought his great wisdom to bear as a member of the
Indian Parliament from the mid-1980s to the early ‘90s, and wrote two
autobiographies, the second edited by Harrison. Ravi also mentored his
daughter Anoushka, who emerged as a notable sitar player in her own
right, and they toured together. Another daughter, Norah Jones, herself became a world-famous, multi-million-selling success.

In 2010, the Ravi Shankar and George Harrison
'Collaborations' box set was released. It includes 'Shankar Family &
Friends' (1974), 'Ravi Shankar's Music Festival from India' (1976),
'Chants of India' (1997) and a DVD of the previously unissued filmed
performance of the 'Music Festival from India,' from London's Royal
Albert Hall in September 1974.
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