Ravi Shankar

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Lore & Background

Shankar was born on 7 April 1920 in Benares (now Varanasi) to a Bengali Hindu family, the youngest of seven brothers. At age 10, he went to Paris with the dance group of his brother Uday Shankar, and by 13 he had become a member, learning to dance and play various Indian instruments. At age 18, he gave up dancing to study the sitar for seven years under court musician Allauddin Khan in Maihar, living with Khan's family in the traditional gurukul system. He made his public debut on the sitar in December 1939, performing a jugalbandi (duet) with Ali Akbar Khan. After finishing his studies in 1944, Shankar moved to Mumbai and joined the Indian People's Theatre Association, composing music for ballets. He worked as a music director for All India Radio, New Delhi, from February 1949 until January 1956, and composed the music for the internationally acclaimed Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray. In 1956, Shankar resigned from AIR to tour the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States, playing Indian classical music for smaller audiences and educating them about the music. He increased its popularity in the 1960s through teaching, performance, and his association with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and Beatles guitarist George Harrison. His influence on Harrison helped popularize the use of Indian instruments in Western pop music in the latter half of the 1960s. At the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, Shankar performed a well-received set but said he was 'horrified' to see Jimi Hendrix set fire to his guitar on stage: 'That was too much for me. In our culture, we have such respect for musical instruments, they are like part of God.' His live album from Monterey peaked at number 43 on Billboard's pop LPs chart. In the late 1960s, Shankar distanced himself from the hippie movement and drug culture, stating: 'It makes me feel rather hurt when I see the association of drugs with our music. The music to us is religion.' He performed at the Concert for Bangladesh in August 1971, where after the crowd applauded the musicians tuning up, he responded, 'If you like our tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more.' The live album from the concert won him a second Grammy Award. From 1986 to 1992, he served as a nominated member of Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India. He continued to perform until the end of his life.

Reader's Guide

Ravi Shankar's significance lies in his role as the primary ambassador of Indian classical music to the Western world during the 20th century. Through his virtuosic sitar performances, teaching, and collaborations with figures like Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison, he introduced ragas and Indian instruments to global audiences, influencing the sound of Western pop music in the 1960s. His work as a composer for Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy and the film Gandhi (for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score) demonstrated his versatility. Shankar's legacy includes four Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year for The Concert for Bangladesh in 1973, the Polar Music Prize, and the Bharat Ratna (India's highest civilian honor). He also founded the Kinnara School of Music in Mumbai in 1962 and opened a Western branch in Los Angeles in May 1967, ensuring the tradition's transmission to future generations. His children Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar continued his musical lineage.

Did You Know?

• Shankar shortened the Sanskrit version of his first name, Ravindra, to Ravi, meaning 'sun'.
• At age 10, Shankar went to Paris with the dance group of his brother Uday Shankar, and by 13 he had become a member, learning to dance and play various Indian instruments.
• Shankar made his public debut on the sitar in December 1939, performing a jugalbandi (duet) with Ali Akbar Khan.
• Shankar's live album from the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival peaked at number 43 on Billboard's pop LPs chart, the highest placing he achieved on that chart.
• Shankar served as a nominated member of Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India, from 1986 to 1992.