{"id":29462,"date":"2025-06-09T05:30:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T09:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=29462"},"modified":"2025-05-27T08:09:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T12:09:26","slug":"five-pop-songs-bearing-the-influence-of-ravi-shankar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/09\/five-pop-songs-bearing-the-influence-of-ravi-shankar\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Pop Songs Bearing the Influence of Ravi Shankar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Academy Award nominee and four-time Grammy winner Ravi Shankar was a sitar virtuoso, and one of the most important figures in Indian classical music. Born in India in 1920, Shankar would become highly influential in Western pop music as well, mentoring George Harrison and taking part in some of the 1960s\u2019 and \u201870s most high-profile concert events. Shankar was a featured performer at the landmark 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and the 1971 Concert for Bangla Desh.<\/p>\n<p>Shankar recorded and released nearly 100 albums during his lifetime before passing away in 2012 at the age of 92. His progeny \u2013 most notably Anoushka Shankar and Norah Jones \u2013 have continued the family tradition of music. Here are five pop songs featuring the Indian instrument Shankar helped popularize in the West.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cNorwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)\u201d from The Beatles\u2019 <em>Rubber Soul<\/em> (1965)<\/strong><br \/>\nLikely the first Western pop song to feature the sitar, the John Lennon composition \u201cNorwegian Wood\u201d features a notable sitar part by guitarist George Harrison. Legend holds that George first encountered the instrument on the set of <em>Help!<\/em>, but however he happened upon the sitar, it was the beginning of a lifelong fascination with the unique and historical stringed instrument.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Y_V6y1ZCg_8?si=NMgoHw7KMKcE090n\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cSunshine Superman\u201d from Donovan\u2019s <em>Sunshine Superman<\/em> (1966)<\/strong><br \/>\nOnce The Beatles introduced the sitar to pop music, the floodgates opened; countless other musicians would incorporate its twangy and exotic textures into their music. Scottish folk rocker Donovan Leitch made the sitar a centerpiece of this 1966 LP <em>Sunshine Superman<\/em>. But the instrument wasn\u2019t played by him; instead, American multi-instrumentalist Shawn Phillips took on that role. Phillips also co-composed the album\u2019s title track, but was not credited.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YsX2FhBf9nY?si=pJnCKTTF1Z0BWJSu\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cPaint it Black\u201d from The Rolling Stones\u2019 <em>Aftermath<\/em> (1966)<\/strong><br \/>\nDespite their significant ability to craft original music, The Rolling Stones often seemed to be following The Beatles\u2019 lead (Lennon and McCartney gave the band their second single, \u201cI Wanna Be Your Man\u201d). Though not known as a songwriter, Brian Jones was noted for his ability to pick up most any instrument and play it in credible fashion. He did just that on sitar for the Jagger\/Richards composition \u201cPaint it Black,\u201d A #1 single in the UK, U.S. and several other countries.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EBUFtoC2oj4?si=xQe7au6q5yJ1jtkw\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cThe Rain, The Park, and Other Things\u201d from The Cowsills\u2019 <em>The Cowsills<\/em> (1967)<\/strong><br \/>\nNewport, Rhode Island\u2019s The Cowsills were a popular family band of brothers, sisters and their mom. The group was the inspiration for television\u2019s Partridge Family. The Cowsills scored many hits of their own, and the first of those, 1967\u2019s \u201cThe Rain, The Park, and Other things\u201d is a sunshine pop classic of the first order. Co-written by the band\u2019s producer Artie Kornfeld (later one of the prime movers behind the Woodstock Festival), the Billboard #2 hit song features trademark Cowsills harmonies backed by a lush arrangement featuring harp, strings and sitar.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uC9tALmALh0?si=dLM0iNkVPbf0M3j0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cIn the Past\u201d from The Chocolate Watch Band\u2019s <em>The Inner Mystique<\/em> (1968)<\/strong><br \/>\nHeroes of American garage rock, The Chocolate Watch Band had a convoluted history, with producers employing session players to cut tracks for their albums without the band\u2019s involvement or approval. But the group still managed to turn out a number of classics. Among those is their reading of \u201cIn the Past,\u201d a cover of a song first recorded by Orlando, Florida band We the People. The song features an exceptional \u2013 and comparatively lengthy for its time \u2013 sitar-based melodic line. Even though the band didn\u2019t play on the recording itself, \u201cIn the Past\u201d would become a popular staple in their live sets.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xRr_IUG7rL4?si=RSDjcIPfHMYy4u-P\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Academy Award nominee and four-time Grammy winner Ravi Shankar was a sitar virtuoso, and one of the most important figures in Indian classical music. Born in India in 1920, Shankar [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1790],"class_list":["post-29462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","tag-ravi-shankar","cat-27-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29464,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29462\/revisions\/29464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}