Shankar's My Music, My Life

Shankar met Richard Bock, founder of World Pacific Records, on his first American Tour and recorded most of his albums in the 1950’s and 60’s for Bock’s label. The special attraction to sitar suddenly came about when the Beatles and the Rolling stones and some other pop groups used it in the recording of their songs. George Harrison, used a sitar to record the song “Norwegian Wood”. Harrison met Shankar in London in June 1966 and visited India later that year for six weeks to study sitar under hanker in Srinagar. During the visit, a documentary film about Shankar was shot by Howard worth. The name of the documentary was Raga and it was released in 1971. Shankar’s association

In the same year, the Beatles won the Grammy Award for Album of the year. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was the album which included Within You Without You, by Harrison, a song which was influenced by Indian Classical music. In 1968, Ravi Shankar published his autobiography My Music, My Life. In October 1970, he became the chair of the department of Indian music at the California Institute of Arts. In late 1970 the London Symphony Orchestra invited Shankar to compose a concerto with sitar. Shankar participated in George Harrison’s Charity Concert for Bangladesh in August 1971. This concert album become one of the best selling recordings to feature the genre and Shankar won a second Grammy Award. Shankar suffered a heart attack in Chicago in November 1974. In his absence, his sister-in-law, singer Lakshmi Shankar, conducted the touring orchestra. Shanker released his second concerto Raga Mala, conducted by Zubin Mehta, in 1981. He was nominated for an Academy Award for the Best Original Music Score for his work on the 1982 movie. Shankar composed the dance drama “Ghanashyam” in 1989. Shankar released an album Passages with Philip Glass in 1990. Shankar wrote a second auto biography, Raga Mala with Harrison as editor. In 2000, Shankar won a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album, for full circle. Carnegie Hall 2000. He toured with Anoushka, who released a book about her father, Bapi: Love of My Life, in 2002. In 2002, Shankar wrote a third concert for sitar and Orchestra for Anoushka and the Orpheus Chamber