Behka Discusses Ravi Shankar’s Influence on the Beatles

Kids, Ravi Shankar died at the age of 92 recently.  Some of you are surely asking me, "Behka, who the heck is Ravi Shankar?  Is it a person?  Is it a train?"  Well, I'm here to tell you all about him.

Ravi Shankar was an Indian musician.  I know of him because of his association with George Harrison.  George discovered Indian music and culture on the set of the movie 'Help!'  From then on, he used the sitar and other instrumentation on Beatles songs like "Within You Without You," "Norweigan Wood," "Love You To," "The Inner Light" and here and there on other tracks.  His popularizing it in fact led to people like The Rolling Stones to use it on tracks like "Paint It, Black" (this is off topic, but the Stones were COPYCATS until the Beatles broke up.  'Nother story).

Ravi Shankar was George's sitar teacher.   He was also a de facto spiritual leader of sorts, encouraging George to look into Hinduism, Buddhism, and Hare Krishna.  They collaborated on albums and on the famous Concert for Bangladesh.   Ravi wasn't perfect (He was Norah Jones' father but denied his paternity until well into her adulthood), obviously, and he was just a musician, not a spiritualist, but he did become a friend and mentor to George, and of course George Harrison influenced the world.

So I guess that's why I care that he died, that might be why you could care.   If you want to enjoy some of his work you might check out the Concert for Bangladesh album, or rent the movie Ghandi (he worked on the music for it).

Prabhujee,

Behka