Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar dies at 92
Association with George Harrison rocketed him to stardom
NEW DELHI — Ravi Shankar, the sitar master who became a hippie musical icon of the 1960s after hobnobbing with the Beatles, has died. He was 92.
The musician’s foundation said he had suffered upper respiratory and heart problems and had undergone heartvalve replacement surgery last week.
The prime minister’s office called him a “national treasure.” Labeled “the godfather of world music” by George Harrison, Shankar helped millions of classical, jazz and rock lovers discover the centuries-old traditions of Indian music.
He also pioneered the concept of the rock benefit with the 1971 Concert For Bangladesh. To later generations, he was known as the estranged father of popular U.S. singer Norah Jones.
In the 1950s, Shankar began collaborating with and teaching some of the greats of Western music, including violinist Yehudi Menuhin and jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. He played well-received shows in halls in Europe and the United States but faced a constant struggle to bridge the musical gap between West and East.
Describing a Shankar tour in 1957, Time magazine said, “U.S. audiences were receptive but occasionally puzzled.”
His close relationship with Harrison, the Beatles lead guitarist, shot Shankar to global stardom in the 1960s.
Harrison had grown fascinated with the sitar, a long-necked string instrument that uses a bulbous gourd for its resonating chamber and resembles a giant lute. He played the instrument, with a Western tuning, on the song “Norwegian Wood,” but soon sought out Shankar, already a musical icon in India, to teach him to play it properly.
The pair spent weeks together, starting the lessons at Harrison’s house in England and then moving to a houseboat in Kashmir and later to California.
Gaining confidence with the complex instrument, Harrison recorded “Within You Without You” on the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” helping spark the raga-rock phase of ’60s music and drawing attention to Shankar.
Shankar’s popularity exploded, and he soon found himself playing on bills with some of the top rock musicians of the era. He played a four-hour set at the Monterey Pop Festival and the opening day of Woodstock.
Though his audience had hugely expanded, Shankar, a serious, disciplined traditionalist, chafed against the drugs and rebelliousness of hippie culture.
“I was shocked to see people dressing so flamboyantly. They were all stoned. To me, it was a new world,” Shankar told Rolling Stone magazine.
In 1971, moved by the plight of millions of refugees fleeing into India to escape the war in Bangladesh, Shankar reached out to Harrison to see what they could do to help.
In what Shankar later called “one of the most moving and intense musical experiences of the century,” the pair organized two benefits at Madison Square Garden and included Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan and Ringo Starr. The concerts, which spawned an album and a film, raised millions of dollars for UNICEF and inspired other rock benefits, including the 1985 Live Aid concert to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia and the 2010 Hope For Haiti Now telethon.
Ravindra Shankar Chowdhury was born April 7, 1920, in the Indian city of Varanasi. He eventually won three Grammy awards and was nominated for an Oscar for his score of the movie “Gandhi.”