One hundred years after the birth of sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, his meditative reinvention of Indian classical raga music has particular resonance during the corona crisis.
"I have received so much love, but my loneliness has not disappeared," said the musician in 1977. "Somehow I got it by inheritance, and I'm carrying it all the time in my life."
Perhaps Shankar's lonesome spirit explains, 100 years after his birth, why his music has a special relevance in this time of enforced social isolation.
Child prodigy
Ravi Shankar's meditative sitar sounds might invite you to slow down, yet the man born in Varnasi in North India on April 7, 1920 during British colonial rule lived an often fast-paced life.
Ravi Shankar, sitar legend # 12.12.2012 # Journal Englisch
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As a musician, Shankar toured the world, and his art crossed the boundaries between Indian and European classical music.
His life onstage began at an early age — but as a dancer. He travelled to France at age ten with his older brother's dance group, the Compagnie de Dans et Musique Hindou. Two years later the ensemble toured Europe and North America.
For the youngest of the seven Shankar brothers, this was the perfect opportunity to not only gain dance experience, but to learn different Indian instruments and explore Western culture.
Inspiration for the Beatles
At 18, Shankar decided to devote himself entirely to the sitar. Turning away from dancing, he studied the plucked instrument with up to 20 strings for several years in the city of Maihar in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. His teacher was Allauddhin Khan, the father of renowned composer and sarold player Ali Akbar Khan.
Shankar released his first LP Three Ragas in London in 1956. He also wrote concertos for sitar and orchestra and was soon traveling the world with his music.
A Beatle and more: George Harrison
Shy and standing in the shadows of Paul McCartney and John Lennon, "The Beatles" lead guitarist became known as "quiet Beatle." A look at George Harrison's life in honor of his 80th birthday.
Image: Mary Evans Library/picture-alliance
More than The Beatles
After gaining world fame with the Beatles, George Harrison went on to enjoy success as a solo artist, as well as chart a personal spiritual path. Harrison takes 11th place on the list of the "100 best guitarists of all time" by the music magazine "Rolling Stone." Throughout his life, he was on a spiritual quest — one which decisively influenced his music.
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A lad from Liverpool
George Harrison was born on February 25, 1943, in Wavertree, a suburb of the northern English port city of Liverpool. He went to the same primary school as the three-year-old John Lennon and later met Paul McCartney on the school bus — an encounter that would change his life and the world.
Image: Getty Images
A musical boy from Liverpool
A friend of his father taught George the basics of playing guitar. He got his own first instrument at 13; today, it hangs as a memento behind glass. Coming of age in the heyday of rock 'n' roll, George, like many boys, dreamed of a career as a rock musician. In 1958, his friend Paul McCartney brought him into the band The Quarrymen, which had been founded by John Lennon two years earlier.
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A Beatles career
In 1960, The Quarrymen became The Beatles, though with a slightly different cast. That was the start of an incredible world career. George Harrison (center top) played lead guitar. The fact that John Lennon and Paul McCartney called the shots always rankled him. Harrison conceded that the two were a great duo — but they had egos to match, and there simply was no room for anyone else.
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Beatlemania in Germany
No matter where they showed up, the Fab Four from Liverpool unleashed a frenzy. Young girls fainted left and right, for instance during a 1966 Germany tour organized by the German teen magazine "Bravo." It was the only time the Beatles ever toured Germany.
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The songwriter
While in The Beatles, George Harrison wrote quite a few songs, but for the most part, he couldn't get his material past Lennon and McCartney. Classic Beatles songs including "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" ("White Album," 1968), "Something" and "Here Comes The Sun" ("Abbey Road," 1969) were the exception.
For the first time in 1965, while shooting the movie "Help," Harrison held an instrument in his hands that was widely unknown in Europe: a sitar. Fascinated, he took lessons with Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar (above right). He played the instrument in the song "Norwegian Wood" (1965), starting a trend. In "Paint It Black" (1966), The Rolling Stones also played a sitar.
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Spiritual journey
Harrison increasingly showed an interest in Indian culture. In 1966 The Beatles traveled to India to study meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. While the other members of the band quickly lost interest, Harrison took it a step further and converted to Hinduism, subsequently joining the Hare Krishna movement. He also traveled on various occasions back to India, such as in 1996 (above).
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Just married
On January 21, 1966, Harrison married Pattie Boyd, a photo model he met while shooting "Yeah Yeah Yeah." The above photo shows the young couple in Barbados. Back then, no one would have guessed that only six years later, Pattie would run away with George's best friend, Eric Clapton.
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An end — and new beginnings
Unhappy with his role in the band, Harrison recorded a solo album in 1968, "Wonderwall Music." The Beatles split up two years later, and Harrison released "All Things Must Pass," a song that rose to the top of the charts in England and the US. He must have had 80 songs tucked away in a drawer that he never got to record with the Beatles, record producer Phil Spector said.
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Concert for Bangladesh
Many of Harrison's songs are about spirituality and the transience of life. In 1971, he organized a concert for Bangladesh to raise money for the victims of a devastating flood. It was a groundbreaking charity concert, featuring the likes of Bob Dylan (above right), Ringo Starr, Ravi Shankar and Eric Clapton.
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Life at Friar Park
Friar Park, a mansion in Oxfordshire, was home for George Harrison, his second wife, Olivia, and their son, Dhani. In December 1999, a demented man entered the premises and attacked the musician with a knife. Harrison survived, severely injured.
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At auction
Harrison had a few hits in the 80s and 90s, but then his life took a different turn. Records, films, TV performances — he lost interest and decided to let it all go, he said, adding these things are only meaningful to people who don't know where they are headed. Pictured above are letters and tapes of an unreleased song written for a friend that were auctioned in 2017.
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Posthumous honor
George Harrison died of lung cancer on November 29, 2001. He was 58 years old. Eight years after his death, Hollywood gave him a star on the Walk of Fame. His former Beatles band colleague, Paul McCartney, his wife Olivia and their son, Dhani, turned out for the ceremony.
Image: Lionel Hahn/abaca/picture-alliance
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The Indian musician was not afraid of Western pop music either. In 1966 Shankar taught the lead guitarist of the Beatles, George Harrison , to play the sitar during a stay in India. Harrison later used the instrument, in addition to Indian tabla drums, on songs like "Norwegian Wood" and "Within You Without You." A close friendship developed between the two musicians.
Flower power icon
With Shankar's success, the Indian influence on Western pop music and jazz grew as hybrid genres like raga rock developed — indeed, legendary jazz saxophonist John Coltrane named his son Ravi after the sitar maestro in 1965.
In August 1969, Shankar played alongside rock and blues superstars such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin at the legendary Woodstock Festival — and was henceforth a darling of the hippie generation.
Shankar also teamed up with George Harrison in 1971 to organize a charity concert. Held in New York's Madison Square Garden, the "Concert for Bangladesh" raised money for refugees displaced by the war between Pakistan and Bangladesh. The recording of the event won the 1972 Grammy for Album of the Year.
Shankar continued to expand his musical horizons and collaborations, working with American avant-garde composer John Cage, the French flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal, and the celebrated violinist Yehudi Menuhin .
Ravi Shankar and George Harrison announce their joint benefit concert at a press conference in New YorkImage: picture-alliance/CAP/MPI/RKA/JH
Famous daughters
Shankar's complicated private life was a source of much speculation. In 1941 he married the daughter of his sitar teacher Allauddin Khan, Annapurna Kahn, who was only 14 when their son Shubhendra — who would also play sitar — was born a year later.
The couple divorced in 1962 and several affairs followed. One of them was with Sarah Jones, a New York concert producer who gave birth to Shankar's first daughter, Norah Jones — who went on to have a Grammy-award winning career as a jazz pianist and singer-songwriter.
When Shankar married Sukanya Rajan in 1989, the couple already had an eight-year-old daughter, Anoushka. His second daughter learned to play the sitar from her guru father, whom she often accompanied on tour. Her father's best friend, George Harrison, was also a big influence in her musicality, and in 2003 Anoushka was nominated for a Grammy with her album Live at Carnegie Hall.
Ravi Shankar's daughter Anoushka made her concert debut in New Delhi at age 13Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Townsend
Music godfather
As a globetrotting celebrity, Shankar may have often felt lonely. But with his music he connected people of different cultures across the planet.
The Indian musician won four Grammys, and George Harrison once called him the "godfather of world music."
A committed vegetarian, Ravi Shankar lived out his final years with his wife Sukanya in Southern California. He died in San Diego on December 11, 2012 at the age of 92, but his musical legacy lives on.
