- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- Live: Ravi Shankar at the Monterey International Pop Festival yielded Ravi Shankar’s highest placement on American record charts.
Ravi Shankar – Live: Ravi Shankar at the Monterey International Pop Festival (1967): Ravi Shankar is the musician from India who is best known to American audiences; in fact, Shankar was one of the most famous Indians in the West by the end of the 1960’s. This master of the sitar performed regularly at rock festivals like Monterey Pop and Woodstock; following Woodstock though, Ravi Shankar distanced himself from the hippie subculture, as Wikipedia put it (what I heard was that, basically, he thought everyone was too stoned to truly appreciate his music). Shankar has a musician daughter, Norah Jones. While Ravi Shankar is best known as an Indian classical music maestro, he became known, and was also criticized, for his more experimental music in later years. Wikipedia lists dozens of albums by Ravi Shankar in his discography.
Had Monterey Pop been limited only to, say, rock musicians from nearby San Francisco, the concert event would not be nearly so well known; but the invited bands covered regional scenes across the country, and the presence on the bill of Eric Burdon and the Animals, and the Who from the British Invasion, along with non-rock artists Otis Redding and Ravi Shankar, gave Monterey Pop a truly global feel. Live: Ravi Shankar at the Monterey International Pop Festival presents two long sitar pieces and a solo on the tabla, the drums that often accompany sitar music. The album peaked at #43 on the Billboard albums chart, Ravi Shankar’s highest placement on American record charts.