An unlikely crossover: George Harrison and Ravi Shankar and their fusion magic

Ravi Shankar is a giant in both Indian classical and world music. From a well-respected, professional family in India, he started his career in the arts as a dancer and later moved to intensive training in learning how to play the sitar. His first debut performance was in 1939, and the rest is history — by the end of his lifetime in 2012 he had won five Grammys, been knighted by Elizabeth II for his “services to music,” and performed with prominent artists on the international stage.
George Harrison, on the other hand, was a bit different. He was born into a smaller family in Liverpool, to a bus conductor and shop assistant, and grew up exposed to an extremely different library of music. His family nurtured his love for music, and between his obsession with the guitar and his band, he was sold on music. At school, he bonded with Paul McCartney over their mutual love for music, and they grew into a little band you might have heard of: The Beatles.
It’s hard to believe that individuals as incredibly different as George Harrison and Ravi Shankar even crossed paths, let alone created music together. But their fusion pieces are and will always stand as proof to us of one of the most fascinating alliances in musical history.

The Beatles, while successful, did not hold Harrison’s interests forever. He soon began to drift towards his lifelong curiosity towards Vedic Indian music, elements of which he had already incorporated into many of his pre-Shankar pieces, such as “Norwegian Wood” (1965). Upon listening to it, the twangy sound of the sitar (although played untrained and unconventionally) is glaring over the opening guitar strums. It is because of Harrison that the quasi-genre “raga-rock” was coined. When Harrison reached out to Shankar about sitar lessons in the 60s, Shankar was highly puzzled. He had already been collaborating with non-Indian artists like John Coltrane and Yehudi Menuhin by this point, but it seemed there were irreconcilable fundamental differences between Indian and rock culture.

Indian classical music is a primarily oral tradition that stretches back thousands of years. It is fully intertwined with Hindu spirituality, religion, and history, and has remained highly traditional, almost academic, in its rigidity. The rock ‘n’ roll culture that Harrison came from seemed entirely in contrast. Indian culture in the 1950s and 60s was misunderstood; many Americans associated it conveniently with drugs, rebellion, and hippie culture. Shankar was horrified at some of his initial American concerts with Harrison at which audience members were too high to even know where they were. Understandably, it was frustrating to Shankar, and many of his peers back at home, to see something so sacred to Indian culture being trivialized and disrespected by listeners abroad.

Despite everything, Shankar became impressed with Harrison’s humility, and Harrison with Shankar’s dedication, so the pair began training. After Harrison and Shankar’s meeting, there’s an evident shift towards more distinctive sitar motifs in The Beatles’ music. There are three songs in particular that showcase Harrison’s new knowledge. “Love You To” is a 1966 song from The Beatles album Revolver (1966) that was both played and sung by Harrison. “Within You Without You” is another popular Beatles’ song that stemmed from Harrison’s fusion interest, from the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band album (1967). In “My Sweet Lord,” Harrison combines a Christian “hallelujah” with a Hindu “hare Krishna” chant in the chorus. Both chants mean the same thing, but their juxtaposition in alternating lines serve as a tribute to Harrison’s deeper look at Indian religion through Shankar.

Despite his shock at audience behavior at concerts, Shankar recognized that his involvement with Harrison is ultimately what introduced American society to Indian classical music at all. It is debatable whether listeners understood the depth and nuances of that Indian classical music brought to the table, but the response was supportive. When the country of Bangladesh was experiencing a humanitarian crisis in the 1971, Shankar and Harrison organized the Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden, bringing in more funds and awareness than ever expected. Harrison performed his song “Bangladesh” – the fact that he was singing for and about this distant Asian country at a venue like Madison Square Garden was pretty incredible. The music performed on stage that night was beautiful because of more than just its sound. In reality, it was the blending of two such vastly different traditions of music that made the event so momentous. Videos from the concert show traditional Indian instruments and legendary musicians performing in front of crowds of rock ‘n’ roll hippies. To me, this is proof that while the interplay between music and culture is indeed powerful, music can always defy cultural barriers.

Decades later, for Indian-American listeners like myself, the Ravi Shankar and George Harrison duo is still one of the most interesting musical collaborations in history. It brought my two worlds together and highlighted the two musical cultures that I identify with best. It opened doors for Indian artists to create cross-cultural fusion music, and successfully showcased the beauty of Indian classical music to listeners around the world. Present-day artists like tabla maestro Zakir Hussain lead world music by collaborating with artists like jazz musicians Dave Holland, Chris Potter, and more (if you haven’t, watch Hussain and Holland’s Crosscurrents Jazz Night in America performance). Some artists have been blending genres within their own music, like Karsh Kale, who combines Indian sound with electronic, pop, and rock elements. Thanks to these artists and more, up and coming Indian-American fusion music looks to be fresh, diverse, and limitless, and I am excited to explore more of it.

Article by Sanjana Sanghani