Ravi Shankar Took the Sitar From Maihar to Monterey and Woodstock, Won Four Grammy Awards, Organised the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh and Received the Bharat Ratna in 1999

Ravi Shankar was born in Varanasi on 7 April 1920, learned the sitar in the small court town of Maihar, scored the first film of Satyajit Ray, and organised the Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden in New York on 1 August 1971. Grammy.com lists four wins for him, and the Ministry of Home Affairs lists his Bharat Ratna under 1999. NPR’s obituary said he was responsible for making Indian classical music popular in the West, and named the Beatles and the violinist Yehudi Menuhin among his collaborators. He died on 11 December 2012, aged 92.

A dancer in Paris before he was a sitarist

Bloomberg’s obituary, carried by the Philadelphia Inquirer, says Shankar was the youngest of seven sons. The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation records that as a boy he went to Paris with his older brother Uday Shankar, who was building Europe’s first Indian dance company. Ravi became a dancer in the troupe and, by the foundation’s account, learned the sitar, the sarod (a fretless plucked lute), the bamboo flute and drums along the way. The Polar Music Prize adds that he toured Europe and America with the troupe from about the age of ten. The sitar, a long-necked plucked lute, was the instrument he would choose to master.

Maihar and the terms of a teacher

That teacher was Allauddin Khan, a sarod master and court musician to Raja Brijnath Singh of Maihar, a princely state in what is now Madhya Pradesh. Gale’s Contemporary Musicians entry says Uday Shankar invited Khan in 1935 to tour as the troupe’s principal soloist, and that Ravi acted as his interpreter and guide for about a year in the hope of becoming his pupil. According to the same entry, Khan agreed to teach him the sitar only if he left Paris for Maihar.

Most sources date the move to 1938. The Polar Music Prize and Rolling Stone India both give 1938, while the Gale entry gives about 1936. The Polar Music Prize says he studied under Khan until 1944, and the Magsaysay Foundation puts the study at about seven and a half years. Rolling Stone India describes a spartan rented room without electricity or running water, and Gale reports that he practised about twelve hours a day. The Associated Press quoted Shankar on what Khan demanded: that he leave everything else and do one thing properly.

Khan’s students and family became the core of what musicians call the Maihar gharana, a school of playing handed down from one teacher’s line. Mrinal Pande’s National Herald obituary of Annapurna Devi names among Khan’s disciples his son, the sarod player Ali Akbar Khan, his daughter Annapurna Devi, the flautist Pannalal Ghosh and the sitarist Nikhil Banerjee, besides Shankar. The Magsaysay Foundation records that Shankar married his teacher’s daughter. Rolling Stone India adds that after the Second World War Khan formed the Maihar Band, an ensemble of Indian instruments. Shankar’s first public recitals followed in 1939, according to the Polar Music Prize.

All India Radio and the score for Pather Panchali

From 1949 to 1956 Shankar was music director at All India Radio in New Delhi, the Polar Music Prize says. Gale’s entry credits him with founding the Vadya Vrinda, an Indian chamber orchestra at the broadcaster, and with about 200 compositions for it.

In 1955 Satyajit Ray wanted him for Pather Panchali, according to the Satyajit Ray Foundation. Shankar was touring, saw only about half the film, and recorded the music in a single session of about eleven hours. The foundation quotes Ray’s later recollection in My Years with Apu: “It was a marathon session and left us exhausted but happy, because most of the music sounded wonderful.” A few sequences went without Shankar’s music, and Ray’s cinematographer Subrata Mitra devised the music for the sweetmeat seller’s scene himself. The Magsaysay Foundation lists the scores for Ray’s Apu trilogy among his film work. The film’s own story, and Ray’s honours, are in the tuput piece on Satyajit Ray, the Oscar and the Bharat Ratna.

Shankar later wrote music for Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, the film about the life of Mahatma Gandhi. The Academy’s records list “Gandhi” with Ravi Shankar and George Fenton among the nominees for original score at the 55th Academy Awards, held on 11 April 1983. The award went to John Williams for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.

The 1956 debut in the West and a Grammy with Menuhin

Shankar made his Western solo debut in 1956 and recorded Three Ragas that year, the Polar Music Prize records. A raga is the melodic framework a Hindustani musician improvises within. Gale’s entry places his American debut in New York in 1956 and says it drew critical praise. The Magsaysay Foundation notes that he stayed within the raga’s traditional framework in his improvisations, and that he later performed with Western musicians including Menuhin and the flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal.

His album with Menuhin, West Meets East, won Best Chamber Music Performance at the 10th Grammy Awards, according to Grammy.com. Bloomberg’s obituary adds that he opened the Kinnara School of Music in Mumbai in 1962.

George Harrison, Monterey and Woodstock

George Harrison played the sitar on the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)”, which Bloomberg says introduced the instrument to rock, and then sought out Shankar as a teacher. Gale’s entry says the two met at a dinner party in 1966. Bloomberg reports that Harrison studied with Shankar in India for six weeks that year. The Associated Press notes that Harrison recorded “Within You Without You” for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and that he called Shankar the “godfather of world music”.

Shankar played the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967, where Bloomberg says he was the only artist paid, and Woodstock in 1969, a year the Polar Music Prize also records.

The 1971 Concert for Bangladesh

In 1971 Shankar, from a Bengali family, was moved by news of the refugees from East Pakistan living in camps in India. The Daily Star of Dhaka reports that he first hoped to raise about 25,000 dollars for children in the refugee camps, through his album Joi Bangla and a later charity concert, and that he asked Harrison for help. Harrison said, as the Beatles’ official site quotes him, “Really it was Ravi Shankar’s idea.” The war itself is covered in tuput’s account of the 1971 war that made Bangladesh.

The concert took place on 1 August 1971 at Madison Square Garden, with a second show added after the first sold well. The official Beatles site lists Harrison, Bob Dylan, Shankar, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, Billy Preston and the band Badfinger among the performers. According to the Associated Press, Shankar told an audience that applauded his tuning that he hoped they would enjoy the playing even more.

Reports of the money differ. The Daily Star puts the early receipts at about 250,000 dollars, UNICEF’s page says the effort raised 10 million dollars, and Gale’s entry says the live album later produced about 15 million dollars for refugees. The album, The Concert for Bangla Desh, won Album of the Year at the 15th Grammy Awards on 3 March 1973, and Grammy.com lists Shankar among its credited winners. Grammy.com’s retrospective calls it the first major benefit album.

Honours at home and abroad

Shankar sat in the Rajya Sabha as a nominated member from 1986 to 1992, after nomination by Rajiv Gandhi, the Polar Music Prize says. In 1992 the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation honoured him in its category for journalism, literature and creative communication arts, citing him for “enriching India and the world with his sublime mastery of the sitar.” The Polar Music Prize of 1998 cited nearly six decades of work as a performer and explorer of his country’s art music. The Hollywood Bowl’s profile lists the Padma Vibhushan, and France’s Commandeur de la Legion d’Honneur in 2000.

The Ministry of Home Affairs’ list of Bharat Ratna recipients shows Pandit Ravi Shankar (1920 to 2012) under 1999, one of four that year alongside Jayaprakash Narayan, Amartya Sen and Gopinath Bordoloi. The same list shows the singer Lata Mangeshkar receiving the honour in 2001, a story told in tuput’s piece on Lata Mangeshkar.

Grammy.com’s artist page lists four wins: Best Chamber Music Performance at the 10th Grammys for West Meets East, Album of the Year at the 15th for the Bangladesh album, and Best World Music Album at the 44th for Full Circle: Carnegie Hall 2000 and at the 55th for The Living Room Sessions Part 1. The 55th ceremony was on 10 February 2013, two months after his death. Ultimate Classic Rock reports that the Recording Academy announced a Lifetime Achievement award for him on 12 December 2012, to be presented on 9 February 2013, and that its president, Neil Portnow, had told Shankar of it the week before. His daughter Anoushka Shankar was nominated in the same World Music category that year for Traveller. The Associated Press obituary, written before the 2013 result, said he had won three Grammy Awards; Grammy.com’s artist page, which includes the posthumous win, totals four wins and ten nominations.

Shankar died near his home in the San Diego area, with his wife and a daughter beside him, after heart-valve replacement surgery the week before, according to the Associated Press. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s official Twitter account described him, NPR reported on 11 December 2012, as a national treasure and a global ambassador of India’s cultural heritage.