by André Depienne

In 2012 the Indian Sitar player Ravi Shankar left us for good. The father of the singer No- rah Jones was 92. He got known to a huge pu- blic due to his work with George Harrison. Together with the ex-Beatle he organized the “Concert for Bangladesh” on August 1st, 1971 at “Madison Square Garden” in New York, in front of 40,000 people. Stars like Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, Klaus Voormann and Badfinger participated. Ravi did not earn his popularity in the western world with the Beatles, but with the Byrds. They used a few elements from Ravi in their songs. This grew the attention of George Harrisson. He bought a Sitar and used it for his song “Norwegian Wood (This bird has flown)”. A lot of musi- cians started using Indian music and the “Ra- ga-Rock-sound” was born. In 1966 George Harrison met Ravi in London and followed him to India for 6 weeks to perfect his Sitar knowledge. The Hindu and vegetarian Ravi Shankar was also present in 1969 at the legen- dary “Woodstock Festival” and definitely be- came a star to a young public, especially Hip- pies.