The moment George Harrison found the work of Ravi Shankar
It can’t be overstated how life-changing the work of sitarist Ravi Shankar was to a young George Harrison.
Once exposed to Shankar’s signature raga scales, an entire creative and personal path was unveiled by the classical Indian musician, triggering a years-long fascination with the sitar to the point of heading straight to New Delhi in the mid-1960s to purchase the instrument directly from Rikhi Ram & Sons, later to study the sitar under Shankar’s tutelage for six weeks in Kashmir. For the rest of his days, Harrison harboured a spiritual affinity with Hindu mysticism and the Hare Krishna Movement.
The exact manner in which Harrison first discovered Shankar is a little woolly. It’s understood that Harrison was exposed to Indian music on 1965’s Help! shoot, where a stringed vichitra veena was played in the background of the feature’s Rajahama restaurant scene, scored by Hindi film composer Shiv Dayal Batish, who also contributed raga renditions of The Beatles’ hits. Reportedly, Harrison picked up the sitar on set and later went to seek out Shankar’s records not long after.
Roger McGuinn told a different tale, however. According to The Byrds guitarist, an invitation to a rented house in Beverly Hills, along with fellow Byrd David Crosby and actor Peter Fonda, in August 1965 marked the moment Harrison was introduced to the world of Shankar.
The evening’s entertainment largely consisted of copious amounts of LSD, The Beatles eagerly pushing acid virgins Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney to finally get with the lysergic memo, Ringo relenting while McCartney still holding off.
The evening is most remembered for Fonda’s tripped-out revelations, “I know what it’s like to be dead,” a wholly unwelcome bad vibe among the sunny psychedelic experience, which inspired John Lennon’s ‘She Said She Said’ on Revolver and a boot from the party. Just as fortuitous was McGuinn’s recommendation of Indian music.
“We went in, and David, John Lennon, George Harrison and I took LSD to help get to know each other better,” McGuinn recalled. “There was a large bathroom in the house, and we were all sitting on the edge of a shower, passing around a guitar, taking turns to play our favourite songs. John and I agreed ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’ was our favourite ’50s rock record.”
He added, “I showed George Harrison some Ravi Shankar sounds, which I’d heard because we shared the same record company, on the guitar. I told him about Ravi Shankar, and he said he had never heard Indian music before.”
Whether first hearing of Shankar there and then, or having had a taste during Help!, a lightning bolt of inspiration was had. Harrison proved instrumental in pushing the sitar into rock and pop, flexing his raga chops on Rubber Soul’s ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’, then later to more sophisticated effect on ‘Love You To’. The Byrds, too, would embrace Indian harmonies on ‘Why’ and ‘Eight Miles High’, both they and The Beatles the biggest Western champions of Shankar’s sitar touch on the day’s counterculture and search for new sounds.
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