World Party

Shankar influences Beatles, others with Indian sound

George Harrison, former Beatles guitarist, dubbed Ravi Shankar the "Godfather of World Music." How right he was.

Shankar's work on the Indian sitar has inspired not only that famous Beatle, but also many more of the world's artists for the past half-century.

Shankar began his performance career as a dancer. But after he began studying with the Indian music great Allauddin Khan, he realized music was the art form around which he would base his life.

Thus, at age 13, Shankar began a long and influential career as a classical Indian musician. Born in United Province in West Bengal on April 7, 1920, Shankar has spent his 59-year career becoming a world-famous musician, as well as an international spokesman for the multicultural exchange of ideas.

During the '60s, especially, Shankar had a profound influence on many Western musicians. Albums such as 1973's Ragas and the recently re-mastered Sounds of India are beautiful works that truly bring out the full flavor of the sitar's rich music.

Other important instruments used in creating these albums are the tabla, a pair of hand drums, and the tamboura, another 4- or 5-string instrument played by plucking its strings.

- Ravi Shankar

Shankar did not limit himself in his artistic form, however. Working with minimalist composer Philip Glass in the early '90s, he wrote and recorded Passages, a unique and modernistic album. Though it keeps some of the technical ideals of Indian music, it blends in Western style and instruments of classical music as well.

"He's done such ground-breaking work bringing the music of the East to the West while maintaining the integrity of the music," said Madalaine Charnow from the Ravi Shankar Foundation based near San Diego, Calif.

Because Indian music is so different from most kinds of traditional Western music, many musicians caught on to it and used it to mold new forms from their own music.

"(Shankar) had an early influence on the Beatles, the Byrds and the Kinks, and became the most well-known and internationally known sitar player," said Ken Kubala, manager of City Lights Records, 316 E. College Ave. "George Harrison is the biggest link (of Indian music) to the rock world."

In his autobiography, My Music, My Life, published in 1969, Shankar said, "George (Harrison) talked to me about the sitar and said that he had been very much impressed with the instrument and its sound and my playing of it since he first heard me."

Though his music was incredibly popular in the '60s, Shankar denounced the involvement of his music in the "hippie" and drug cultures of the era. He also continually emphasized that his music was a classical form of music and was not merely there to be used by popular rock musicians.

"My personal opinion is that it is just the sound of the sitar and not true Indian music that one finds in pop songs," he said in My Music.

But aficionados and amateurs of incorporating world music into their music collections have clung to the sitar and Indian music nonetheless. When Shankar realized this, he moved closer to this pop-world, much to the chagrin of his more conservative followers.

Instead of conforming to the younger fans from the West, he attempted to show them the true meanings of his music. He wanted to bring them to a higher understanding of life.

As he said, "I try to live in beauty and goodness; I seek out all that has a quality of inner beauty."