So out I go again, and like Columbus before me, I think I find India. Not west of the Atlantic, mind you, but in the Amazon. Dot com, that is, at $5 a shot.
Ravi Shankar - Three Ragas (1956)
And after all, don’t we owe it to George? George sure owes it to Ravi.
Typically, when you add a little dab of third world music to your pop song, it inspires interest in your listeners to try out said TWM. Oftentimes, though, they come running back, realizing it was the pop music they liked all along. And that little dab of TWM was all they really needed.
But here, if anything, Ravi’s music sounds quite familiar. And even though it was released a decade before Sgt. Pepper, I keep expecting George to pop in and break into We were talking…. from “Within or Without You”. I mean that as a compliment, because this is not at all hard to hear right away.
Not for all occasions, obviously, but not so exotic as you might imagine. Which I guess means that pop music and classical Indian music worked better together than anyone could have reasonably expected. I even hear blues in some of the bent notes. I kid you not.
These three long pieces run nearly an hour, so this is good for early morning when no one else is up yet. And in that way, it's far more familiar and welcoming than The Knife, whose music is designed to get you alone so that it can give you the creeps. A-
When to Play It: When you’re studying
When Not to Play It: Spring Break
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