Shankar

Lakshminarayana Shankar, who records as L. Shankar, stands among the foremost violinists, singers, composers, and producers of his era. Born in 1950 as the youngest of six siblings in a family renowned for its musical accomplishments, he absorbed Indian classical traditions from his father V. Lakshminarayana, a violinist, vocalist, and scholar of the repertoire, and from his mother L. Sitalakshmi, a veena player. By age three he could already vocalize elaborate passages drawn from ancient compositions; two years later he began violin lessons, and at seven he performed publicly for the first time in a Ceylonese temple. Following an extended apprenticeship accompanying leading south Indian vocalists, he formed a touring trio with brothers L. Vaidyanathan and L. Subramaniam that crisscrossed India.

He arrived in the United States in 1970 to pursue ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. There he met Ornette Coleman and Archie Shepp, whose Attica Blues and Communication Network sessions marked his first American recordings. In 1974 Shankar Family & Friends appeared on George Harrison’s Dark Horse imprint, featuring his cousins and an array of distinguished session musicians. At the Connecticut campus he also encountered guitarist John McLaughlin, then studying the veena; their subsequent collaboration produced Shakti, whose debut private performance took place on 5 July 1975 at Southampton College. The ensemble, initially rounded out by percussionist Zakir Hussain, fused jazz improvisation with Indian classical forms across three Columbia albums: the 1976 self-titled debut, Handful of Beauty, and Natural Elements, all from 1977. They reconvened in the 1990s as Remember Shakti.

Shankar’s 1979 solo debut Touch Me There was produced by Frank Zappa, who also supplied lyrics. He joined ECM in 1981 with the raga-centered Who’s to Know, supervised by his father, and remained with the label for a decade, releasing five further titles under his own name—including Vision with Jan Garbarek and Palle Mikkelborg—plus two experimental rock projects by the Epidemics. Since 1980 he has performed on a custom ten-string double-neck violin built with luthier Ken Parker, whose five lower strings evoke double bass or cello while the upper five emulate violin or viola. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s he maintained an extensive sideman schedule, contributing to landmark recordings by Phil Collins (Face Value), Talking Heads (Remain in Light), Lou Reed (New Sensations), Public Image Ltd. (Album), Echo & the Bunnymen (Porcupine), Peter Gabriel (So and The Last Temptation of Christ), and Artists United Against Apartheid (Sun City). In 1989 he joined the Human Rights Now! tour with Springsteen, Reed, Sting, and Tracy Chapman.

Material’s 1989 album Seven Souls, featuring William S. Burroughs, sparked further explorations; he subsequently recorded with Swans (The Burning World) and Percy Jones (Propeller Music) and issued the hour-long raga medley Soul Searcher on Axiom, co-produced with the Epidemics and Bill Laswell and featuring his father, Gabriel, Hussain, and Vinayakram. Additional 1990s credits include Patrick O’Hearn’s White Sands soundtrack, Egberto Gismonti’s Circense, Yoko Ono’s Walking on Thin Ice, Gabriel’s Us and associated live releases, Material’s Hallucination Engine and Western Lands, the traditional Raga Aberi with Hussain and Vinayakram, and Midge Ure’s Breathe. The 1999 reunion project Remember Shakti yielded a live album, followed in 2000 by The Believer with U. Srinivas and V. Selvaganesh.

Also in 2000 Shankar issued Eternal Light and Enlightenment with Hussain and Vinayakram. The following year he and U.S.-born Indian vocalist and double violinist Gingger released One in a Million, whose supporting cast included Mike and Steve Porcaro, Tony Levin, and Phil Collins. Remember Shakti’s Saturday Night in Bombay appeared on Verve that same year. In 2002 he collaborated with Korn’s Jonathan Davis and Richard Gibbs on the Queen of the Damned score. Celestial Body, the second Shankar & Gingger album, surfaced in 2004 with Guy Allison among its participants; later that year he contributed to James Newton Howard’s Hidalgo soundtrack. Appearances on Toto’s Falling in Between and Take That’s Beautiful World preceded the documentary The Way of Beauty, drawn from a Remember Shakti concert. As Shenkar he released the composer-led Open the Door in 2007, conducting an ensemble that included Patrick Leonard, Vinnie Colaiuta, Lisa Coleman, Wendy Melvoin, and David Williams while performing on only two tracks himself.

Further session work encompassed Saul Williams’s The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust!, the Human Abstract’s Midheaven, Richard Page’s Peculiar Life, Saro Cosentino’s One’s & Zero’s Reloaded, and the Rainbow Six: Siege score with Ben Frost and Paul Haslinger. After more than a decade away from leadership roles, he returned with Chepleeri Dream on Cleopatra in 2020, playing violin, keyboards, and vocals alongside Chester Thompson, Jonathan Davis, Tony Levin, and Dileep Palakkad. Christmas from India followed in 2021.