Originally released in 1974 by world-renowned Indian musician Ravi Shankar, Shankar Family & Friends was a pioneering album that mixed Eastern and Western styles – fusing together Indian, pop, classical and jazz music. Produced by George Harrison, it combines Western musicians such as Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Jim Keltner, Klaus Voorman, and Nicky Hopkins side-by-side with Indian-music innovators Alla Rakha, Ashish Khan, Shivkumar Sharma, and Hariprasad Chaurasia. Under the musical direction of Shankar, the large orchestra featured on the album showcases over 30 instruments from the East and West that combined in a ground-breaking way that made it one of the first world music albums ever released.
Containing the first single issued on Dark Horse, “I Am Missing You,” featuring Lakshmi Shankar on vocals backed by a full Western rock band, Shankar Family & Friends has been out of print for many years, until now. Dark Horse Records is proud to present the original album remastered at Abbey Road Studios from the original source masters by Paul Hicks (George Harrison, The Beatles, John Lennon, The Rolling Stones) and reissued for the first time on CD as a standalone release alongside an orchid color vinyl edition.
Recorded at A&M Studios in Los Angeles in April 1973, Shankar Family & Friends marked the first time Harrison and Ravi had collaborated as musicians with Harrison playing acoustic and electric guitar under the name Hari Georgeson. One half of the album comprises instrumentals and songs, while the second half is a thematic ballet to a yet un-staged performance. When asked about the making of the album at the time of the original release, Shankar said: “I’ve written music for many ballets in India. But never, never in the West, with so many Western instruments. This one I did without trying to make it totally Indian at all. I thought of making something very international. That’s why you hear all sorts of sound, starting from sitar or sarod to Moog synthesizer.
“The album contains almost every possible style that you can think of. For many years I was criticized by the purists, but there is much less criticism now, and even if people do it, it doesn’t bother me now. What I think of as new is just supplementing the tradition and adding new flavors - the source is always there.”
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ABOUT DARK HORSE RECORDS
George Harrison’s passion for introducing the world to new music expressed itself in 1974 when he created his own new label, Dark Horse Records, as a place for his solo work and a home for supporting other artists. The newly relaunched Dark Horse, continues that legacy as label home to such diverse artists as Joe Strummer, Leon Russell, Ravi Shankar, Billy Idol, Yusuf/Cat Stevens, Deep Purple’s Jon Lord, Benmont Tench, and of course, George himself. For more, please visit www.darkhorserecords.com.
