Ravi Shankar

• 1. Dancing Through Europe

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  Ravi Shankar was born on the 7th of April 1920 in Benares, now known as Varanasi. He grew up as the youngest of seven brothers in a Bengali Hindu family. His father served as a statesman and lawyer who worked in London for several years. Shankar did not meet his father until he was eight years old. At age ten, he traveled to Paris with his brother Uday's dance group. By thirteen, he had learned to dance and play various Indian instruments while touring Europe. The group visited the United States during the early to mid-1930s. Shankar discovered Western classical music and jazz during these travels. He heard Allauddin Khan perform at a music conference in Calcutta in December 1934. Uday persuaded the Maharaja of Maihar to allow Khan to join their tour in 1935.

• 2. Seven Years In Maihar

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  Shankar decided to leave his dancing career behind in 1938. He moved to Maihar to study Indian classical music under the strict teacher Allauddin Khan. He lived with Khan's family as part of the traditional gurukul system. During this training period that lasted seven years, Shankar mastered the sitar and surbahar. He studied various ragas including dhrupad, dhamar, and khyal. He also received instruction on instruments such as the rudra veena and rubab. Often he studied alongside Khan's children Ali Akbar Khan and Annapurna Devi. Shankar made his public debut on the sitar in December 1939. He performed a jugalbandi duet with Ali Akbar Khan who played the sarod. He completed his musical training in 1944 after finishing his studies.

• 3. Composing For Films And Radio

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  After completing his training, Shankar moved to Mumbai and joined the Indian People's Theatre Association. He composed music for ballets in 1945 and 1946 titled Dharti Ke Lal. At age twenty-five, he recomposed the popular song Sare Jahan Se Achcha. He began recording music for His Master's Voice label. From February 1949 until January 1956, Shankar served as music director at All India Radio in New Delhi. He founded the Indian National Orchestra at AIR and combined Western and classical Indian instrumentation. Beginning in the mid-1950s, he composed the music for Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy. This work became internationally acclaimed. He was also music director for several Hindi movies including Godaan and Anuradha.

• 4. Touring The West

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  Shankar resigned from All India Radio in 1956 to tour the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. He played for smaller audiences and educated them about Indian music. He incorporated ragas from South Indian Carnatic music into his performances. In London, he recorded his first LP album Three Ragas which released that same year. In 1958, he participated in celebrations of the tenth anniversary of the United Nations and UNESCO music festival in Paris. From 1961, he toured Europe, the United States, and Australia. He became the first Indian to compose music for non-Indian films. Shankar befriended Richard Bock, founder of World Pacific Records, on his first American tour. He recorded most of his albums during the 1950s and 1960s for Bock's label. His live album from Monterey peaked at number forty-three on Billboards pop LPs chart in the US.

• 5. The Beatles Connection

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  George Harrison, the guitarist for the Beatles, became influenced by Shankar's music after hearing it through Roger McGuinn and David Crosby. Harrison bought a sitar and used it to record the song Norwegian Wood This Bird Has Flown. In 1968, he traveled to India to take lessons from Shankar in Srinagar. A documentary film named Raga was shot during this visit and released in 1971. Shankar's association with Harrison greatly increased his popularity worldwide. Groups such as the Rolling Stones and the Byrds began using Indian instruments in their songs. The influence extended to blues musicians like Michael Bloomfield who created East-West for the Butterfield Blues Band in 1966. Ken Hunt of AllMusic wrote that Shankar had become the most famous Indian musician on the planet by 1966.

• 6. Concert For Bangladesh

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  Shankar performed at the Concert for Bangladesh held at Madison Square Garden in New York in August 1971. After the musicians tuned up on stage for over a minute, the crowd broke into applause. Shankar responded with amusement saying if you like our tuning so much I hope you will enjoy the playing more. The live album from the concert became one of the best-selling recordings featuring the genre. It won Shankar a second Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In November and December 1974, he co-headlined a North American tour with George Harrison. The demanding schedule weakened his health causing him to suffer a heart attack in Chicago. He missed a portion of the tour but continued performing throughout the rest of the decade.

• 7. Later Years And Family Legacy

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  Shankar served as a member of the Rajya Sabha from the 12th of May 1986 to the 11th of May 1992 after being nominated by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. He composed the dance drama Ghanashyam in 1989. His daughter Anoushka Shankar learned to play sitar under his guidance. In 1997, he became a Regents Professor at University of California San Diego. He performed between twenty-five and forty concerts every year during the late 1990s. Shankar's son Shubhendra died of pneumonia in 1992. His other daughter Norah Jones won five Grammy Awards in 2003. Shankar performed his final concert with daughter Anoushka on the 4th of November 2012 at the Terrace Theater in Long Beach California. He died on the 11th of December 2012 at age ninety-two after undergoing heart valve replacement surgery.