Ravi Shankar : Bridges - The Best Of Flac & MP3 2001

Ravi Shankar (Bengali: born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury on 7 April 1920), is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar.

In 1956, he began to tour Europe and America playing Indian classical music and increased its popularity there in the 1960s through teaching, performance, and his association with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison of The Beatles. Shankar engaged Western music by writing concerti for sitar and orchestra and toured the world in the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1966, Shankar met and became friends with George Harrison, the guitarist of the Beatles.

The Beatles first employed a sitar accompaniment on the song "Norwegian Wood."
Soon, other rock groups such as "The Butterfield Blues Band" and "The Byrds" were displaying Indian influences.

George Harrison met Shankar in London in 1966 and visited India for six weeks to study sitar under Shankar in Srinagar.

Shankar's appearances at both "The Monterey Pop" and "Woodstock" festivals increased his popularity among Western youth. But Woodstock's audience mistakenly applauded him for tuning his instrument, and, with the exception of the Concert for Bangladesh, Shankar refused to perform at other pop music festivals.

The Indian music genius Ravi Shankar was for sure someone very special for the Woodstock festival. He made his first appearance to the western world at" the Monterey International Pop Festival " in 1967, followed by an invitation from Beatle George Harrison. In the wake of spiritualism and the search for new influences his music became very popular but Shankar wasn't fond of the drug-consuming and partying crowd of young people.

Ravi Shankar's music isn't the usual blues, folk or psychedelic rock music that one expects from such a festival. This traditional Indian music, adapted by Ravi Shankar and Ustad Alla Rakha, needs carful listening and openness for different and unknown kinds of rhythms and melodies.

In 1974, Shankar toured the United States with Harrison. Harrison produced two of Shankar's albums in the first half of the 1970s and described his friend as "the godfather of world music."

In 1989, he toured Europe and India with Zubin Mehta and the European Youth Orchestra. Shankar also composed and performed in a musical theater piece, Ghanashyam, in Britain in 1989 and India in 1991, and collaborated with "Phillip Glass" on Passages in 1990.
Even into the new millenium, he continued to write, perform, and tour.

This album have the title "The Best" . But I don't think so .
For my oppinion the greatest albums of Ravi Shankar are :

-Sounds Of India
-Genius Of Ravi Shankar
(And I think that are available only in rare LP's)

I had them once , but I left them in Italy , when I was a student at Bologna University in the '80's . ( Too much stuff , too much trips - I don't remember , I don't recall )

Tracks

1 Sandhya Raga 11:22
2 Chase 2:18
3 West Eats Meat 6:08
4 Ragas In Minor Scale 7:32
5 Tarana 5:37
6 Tana Mana 3:38
7 Sadhanipa 8:31
8 Friar Park 5:54
9 Reunion 4:15
10 Prashanti 13:37
11 Shanti-Mantra 6:49

Take it Flac HERE