Ananda Shankar - Ananda Shankar and his Music

Ananda Shankar was the nephew of the great sitar player Ravi Shankar. While Ravi played more traditional Indian music, Ananda was known as one of the first musicians to fuse traditional Indian music with western pop and rock early in his career, giving birth to the modern age of Indian music. Towards the end of his career he would even apply this fusion of traditional Indian and Western styles to hip-hop and breakbeat.

In the late 1960s Shankar travelled to Los Angeles, where he played with many contemporary musicians including Jimi Hendrix. There he was signed to Reprise Records and released his first self-titled album in 1970, featuring original Indian classical material alongside sitar-based cover versions of popular hits such as The Rolling Stones' Jumpin' Jack Flash and The Doors' Light My Fire. This album has become an enduring cult classic.[citation needed]

Returning to India in the early 1970s Shankar continued to experiment musically and in 1975 released his most critically acclaimed album, Ananda Shankar And His Music, combines Eastern sitar, Western rock guitar, tabla and mridangam, drums and Moog synthesizers. The result is seemless fusion of jazz and psychedelic rock with funky Indian rhythms. This album is legendary in some circles due to it's inclusion of the tracks 'Streets of Calcutta' and 'Dancing Drums', which were featured on a Blue Note break-beat compilation, and are both considered dance-floor favorites. This album also contains it's share of mellow grooves, which compliment the hard driven Indian style funk well, making for one of Shankar's most well rounded musical efforts.

Year of Release: 1975
Label: EMI India
Genre: Psychedelic, World Fusion
Bitrate: 192kbps

Track List:
1. Streets of Calcutta
2. Cyrus
3. The Lonely Rider
4. The River
5. Vidai (Parting)
6. Back Home
7. Dawn
8. Renunciation
9. Dancing Drums

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