Ravi Shankar passed away in December before he could attend The Recording Academy's Special Merit Awards celebration where he was to receive a lifetime achievement award. But the 91-year-old sitar master, Indian music promoter and friend to The Beatles got the call a few days before he passed away, and that meant everything to his family.
Hundreds of friends and family on Thursday remembered sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar as an unfailingly generous teacher with a gentle spirit and sense of humor whose music fostered understanding between East and West.
The walls of Sanjay Sharma's music shop are lined with gleaming string instruments and old photographs of legendary musicians.
The walls of Sanjay Sharma's music shop are lined with gleaming string instruments and old photographs of legendary musicians.
The kids at first didn't seem to know how to respond as Ravi Shankar began his four-hour set on the final afternoon of the Monterey Pop Festival, in the fabled summer of 1967.
With an instrument perplexing to most Westerners, Ravi Shankar helped connect the world through music. The sitar virtuoso hobnobbed with the Beatles, became a hippie musical icon and spearheaded the first rock benefit concert as he introduced traditional Indian ragas to Western audiences over nearly a century.
