Project 1001: Ananda Shankar by Ananda Shankar
"I have had a dream to try to combine Western and Indian music into a new form, a music which has no particular name but is melodious and touching..."
This album opens with three cuts, two of which are instrumental covers of massive rock hits of the time: “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Light My Fire”. At this point, I had visions of sitting in a dentist office in Mumbai. But my fears of a Muzak experience disappeared immediately thereafter. The fourth song begins a set of original compositions from there on out. When the fifth song “Metamorphis” hits and as the title suggests, at least for me anyway, the album transforms into something really wonderful and special. It employs possibly my favorite technique in music: building a crescendo to an invigorating ending. The subsequent cut “Sagar (The Ocean)” has more of a traditional Indian sound and also builds with crescendo. The final two songs are uplifting numbers that left me smiling about getting to enjoy this wonderful album. And I applaud any artist who tries to do something different and interesting like Shankar is doing here. Thinking about “Light My Fire” it’s interesting to note that the Doors’ song very much borrowed from Eastern music. I sincerely hope you check it out and I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Access Ananda Shankar at Prime Music or Spotify. Or if you prefer YouTube.
My rating:
The sub headline is taken from the liner notes to Ananda Shankar. The full passage:
"I have had a dream to try to combine Western and Indian music into a new form, a music which has no particular name but is melodious and touching, and which combines the most modern electronic devices with the old traditional instrument, the sitar."1
The late ‘60s had seen a fad of rock artists incorporating the sitar into their music. Most famously George Harrison with the Beatles. Maybe less well-known, the Rolling Stones with “Paint it Black.” The uniqueness of Ananda Shankar was as an Indian artist approaching the East-West fusion from the Eastern direction. James Lowe served as engineer and offers this evaluation of the albums as a whole: "The idea of fusing Indian music with synth was pretty noble. For Ananda to break away from the traditional use of the sitar was brave, as I saw it. No one had done that in this way yet. George Harrison had introduced the rock world to the sitar and Ananda's family tree a few years earlier, and I think Ananda made a good account of himself. I thought at the time it would have been interesting to let the players wander a bit more together through the music. But there was a condition of having to hook the Moog in there and also have some songs the two cultures could relate to, like 'Light My Fire' and 'Jumpin' Jack Flash.'"2
Richie Unterberger asserted that Shankar deeply influenced music:
“Did Ananda Shankar's dream of combining Western and Indian music into a new form take the world by storm? Not at the time, but Ananda Shankar established a solid reputation among collectors over the next few decades, as well as being hailed as a forerunner of the world music fusions that attained global popularity from the 1980s onward.”3
Buckley Mayfield deemed the fusion a success: “Ananda Shankar is the rare East-West fusion record that works in the discotheque and in the temple. Bow down to its hedonistic holiness.”4
Dismissing this record as just another late ‘60s/early ‘70s attempt to ride the East/West fusion “would be a huge mistake” according to Jon Pruett in AllMusic. He continues:
“Once the novelty of sitar-dosed covers of your favorite songs wears off, you really begin to notice how excellent the performances are on this record. Ananda Shankar manages to bridge the gap between kitsch and fine art on these tracks, from the opener all the way to the cover of "Light My Fire." One minute he is playing simple notes like it was taking the place of a guitar, at other times utilizing the full reign of the sitar's sound possibilities. The originals on the album follow an equally impressive path.”5
In 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, John Lewis wrote:
“The resulting record is the best example of a micro-genre that might be termed “sitar rock”…where the sitar serves as exotic led instrument in a bubblegum rock context.”6
Enjoy and listen without prejudice. Cheers!
Prime Playlist: 228. Ananda Shankar by Ananda Shankar
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For details about this project, read this: Project 1001 Albums
Charts
• Peak on Billboard 200 album chart: n/a
• Singles on Billboard Hot 100 chart: n/a
• RIAA certification: n/a
Released on January 1, 1970. Here’s what else was happening:
Pop Culture
• Number one song: “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” by B.J. Thomas7
• Number one album: Abbey Road by the Beatles8
• Number one movie: On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Peter R. Hunt9
• Most watched TV programs: Marcus Welby, M.D., The Flip Wilson Show, Here’s Lucy, Ironside10
• NYT bestseller, fiction: The Godfather by Mario Puzo11
• NYT bestseller, fiction: The Selling of the President, 1968 by Joe McGinniss12
Some other albums released that week
• The Madcap Laughs by Syd Barrett
• Here's Loretta Singing "Wings Upon Your Horns" by Loretta Lynn
• Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today! by Tony Bennett
• That's the Way Love Is by Marvin Gaye13
Sport
• Jan 1 56th Rose Bowl: #5 Southern California beats #7 Michigan, 10-3.
• Jan 4 In the final AFL Championship, Kansas City Chiefs beat Oakland Raiders, 17-7; NFL Championship, Minnesota Vikings beat Cleveland Browns, 27-7.
• Jan 16 Curt Flood files a civil lawsuit challenging baseball's reserve clause.14
Notable Births
• Dec 28 Linus Torvalds, Finnish-American software engineer (developed Linux operating system), born in Helsinki, Finland.
• Dec 31 David Rawlings, American guitarist and singer, works with Gillian Welch (All the Good Times), born in North Smithfield, Rhode Island.
• Jan 2 Eric Whitacre, American Grammy Award-winning choral conductor and composer (Lux Aurumque; Deep Field), born in Reno, Nevada15
Historical Events
• Jan 1 US Federal oil depletion allowance reduced from 27.5 to 22.0 percent.
• Jan 3 Marxist government takes over in Congo.
• Jan 4 More than 15,000 people are killed in Tonghai County, China after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake.16
Notable Deaths
• Dec 31 Joseph A Yablonski, American labor leader, and candidate for United Mine Workers (UMW) president, murdered in his home by hitmen hired by then-president of UMW at 59. For more on this: Fifty Years Ago, the Murder of Jock Yablonski Shocked the Labor Movement
• Jan 3 Gladys Aylward, British missionary in China; portrayed by Ingrid Bergman in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (b. 1902).
• Jan 7 Robert [Harriot] Barrat, American actor (Bad Lands, Go West, Distant Drums), dies at 80.17
Ibid.
Ibid.
Lewis, John, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Fifth printing, ed. by Robert Dimmery p. 208.