New Books In Music

At 10:20pm on August 15th, 1969, Ravi Shankar — then, and still, the most famous practitioner of the sitar and Indian classical music — takes the stage at Woodstock. It’s arguably the zenith of Indian music’s popularity in the West, with musicians like the Beatles, the Byrds and Led Zeppelin embracing elements of Indian music. But this was merely the middle-point of Shankar’s artistic development, nor was it a personal highlight in a long and storied career. For many musicians in several different genres, both in and outside of India, Shankar is the most important messenger for the ideas and concepts of Indian music. Indian Sun: The Life and Music of Ravi Shankar (Faber & Faber / Hachette: 2020) by Oliver Craske is the first full biography on Shankar’s life, charting Shankar’s musical journey — from accompanying his older brother, the dancer Uday Shankar, on world tours at a young age, through the height of his worldwide acclaim in the late Sixties, to the end of his life as the most respected performer of In