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Indian Sun
- The Life and Music of Ravi Shankar
- Narrated by: Sohm Kapila
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
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Publisher's Summary
The definitive biography of Ravi Shankar, one of the most influential musicians and composers of the 20th century, told with the cooperation of his estate, family, and friends
For over eight decades, Ravi Shankar was India's greatest cultural ambassador. He was a groundbreaking performer and composer of Indian classical music, who brought the music and rich culture of India to the world's leading concert halls and festivals, charting the map for those who followed in his footsteps. Renowned for playing Monterey Pop, Woodstock, and the Concert for Bangladesh - and for teaching George Harrison of The Beatles how to play the sitar - Shankar reshaped the musical landscape of the 1960s across pop, jazz, and classical music, and composed unforgettable scores for movies like Pather Panchali and Gandhi.
In Indian Sun: The Life and Music of Ravi Shankar, writer Oliver Craske presents listeners with the first full portrait of this legendary figure, revealing the personal and professional story of a musician who influenced - and continues to influence - countless artists. Craske paints a vivid picture of a captivating, restless workaholic-from his lonely and traumatic childhood in Varanasi to his youthful stardom in his brother's dance troupe, from his intensive study of the sitar to his revival of India's national music scene. Shankar's musical influence spread across both genres and generations, and he developed close friendships with John Coltrane, Philip Glass, Yehudi Menuhin, George Harrison, and Benjamin Britten, among many others. For 92 years, Shankar lived an endlessly colorful and creative life, a life defined by musical, emotional, and spiritual quests - and his legacy lives on.
Benefiting from unprecedented access to Shankar's archives, and drawing on new interviews with over 130 subjects - including his second wife and both of his daughters, Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar - Indian Sun gives listeners unparalleled insight into a man who transformed modern music as we know it today.
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Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Harpreet Singh chadha
- 10-01-23
How to ruin a amazing book
How to ruin a good book is what you can learn from this one, the narrator can’t pronounce indian names, places and things properly, it’s a big disappointment and at some level disrespectful
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- Ishan C.
- 21-09-21
Lovely book- an absolute must have.
This book in my opinion, is essential coursework when it comes to someone wanting to learn about Indian classical music. I cannot stress how important it is. There were some parts of the book where I hoped there was more detail or more anecdotes, but it is brilliant nonetheless. Where there was detail, oh my dear lord, I loved it. I could feel, in the author's words, the sense of urgency that Raviji felt, about taking Indian music to western audiences, the creativity he was filled to the brim with, and the passion he felt for his work.
What did I learn from this book- hardwork, hardwork, and more hardwork and they're not all one and the same thing. This book tells you, the hardwork his music demanded from him, the hardwork his ambitions and goals demanded of him, and the hard personal life he had, and what role his work played in how it played out.
The narrator, as opposed to the book, left much to be desired. I so wish it had been someone from India, to hit the nail on pronounciations of the names of raags, of people etc.
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- ram
- 04-10-20
Stunning Biography of Pandit Ravi Shankar
Over 22 hrs heard at 1.7X, Oliver Craske and the narrator immerses you in the absolutely incredible life of Pandit Ravi Shankar who has perhaps experienced and achieved more in one life time of the arts than anyone i know. Oliver tracks his life from even before he was born from his father - strange dichotomy of global, liberal and spiritual worldview juxtaposed of neglect for wife and his son/children. By the mid 50's with Ravi Shankar only 35, his achievements and mastery were already of thenext order and he had another 2/3r'ds of his life to live and create such a prodigious body of work and collaborations from Yehudi Menuhin, Philip Glass, Zubin Mehta to Ali Akbar Khan and so many others. I never knew the original scores for symphonies, ballets, dance dramas, opera and the world of cinema. What amazed me was the frenetic and relentless nature of his life which was grounded in music and taking India's classical music traditions to the world. I wish was there in era 66 to 1969 where he brought our music mainstream riding the counter culture wave. The book is a tourdeforce for anyone to understand what it took to be Pandit Ravi Shankar and who knew there might have been no Pandit Ravi Shankar if he surrendered to his suicide urges before he broke through and Tata Baba had not come and guided him!
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- The Circumspect Shopper 😳
- 19-06-21
The Narrator Absolutely BUTCHERS pronounciations
A great and entertaining story that is severely shortchanged by a talentless voice artist...The publisher should have used someone with a smidgen of understanding how to pronounce many of the Indian names and terms ... These are not tangential but are central to the story ... Names are severely mangled ...
What a pity !
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2 people found this helpful
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- artur elias
- 27-02-23
a must for Indian Music lovers
Superb research work lovingly done and beautifully well narrated. Sad at times and strong and inspiring as life itself. Thanks to the author and to the narrator as well 🙏🏽
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- Anonymous User
- 27-01-23
Excellent biography. Many mispronunciations in thereading.
Really enjoyed this biography of Pandit Ravi Shankar, which was comprehensive as well as engaging. The reading/narration is smooth, but the consistent mispronunciation of Indian (or indeed, any non-English) names and words, is distracting and grating.
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- Lydia
- 05-02-23
Breathtaking biography
Essential for music fans, highly detailed and loving account of Ravi's musical and personal life and times. Greatly enhanced my understanding and appreciation of Indian classical music and culture. The narrator is excellent and has a wonderful voice
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- Amazon Customer
- 29-12-22
Incredible detail…maybe too much at times, so deeply detailed.
It was a struggle at times to keep listening as the amount of detail, sometimes not that engaging in my opinion, is almost too much.
However I cannot score this lower as that would be a disservice to the amount of research that has gone into writing this book.
Maybe if it was reduced from 20 to say 14 or 15 hours it would have been easier to listen to.
But nevertheless this is a true epic.
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- Anonymous User
- 09-06-21
Thoroughly Enjoyable
Fascinating, detailed. Much effort put into pronunciation of names, also many mispronunciations of English words.
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- David Smith
- 30-04-21
EXCELLENT BOOK, ENGAGING NARRATION
For anyone with even a passing interest in Indian music, India in general, or it's influence in western 1970s culture, I cannot rate this book highly enough!
As a lover of all things Indian I was of course aware of Ravi Shankar and had a few of his recordings. But until reading this extremely readable biography, I had not really appreciated the extent of his influence on Western music nor the vastness of his talent, let alone his importance in the development of Indian classical music. I initially thought that the book might be a bit too long and detailed for me, but I soon realized this was not the case at all. It covers all aspects of his life and his music in detail from his early life in Varanasi (Benares), his initial training and traveling as a dancer, through his study back in India under his guru, his work for Indian radio, then his international career and fame. For this interested in his involvement with George Harrison (and other Beatles), Philip Glass, or Yehudi Menuhin, amongst others, all of these relationships are covered in detail.
When I got to the end of the book I felt saddened, wishing his life and the book could have lasted even longer!
Apart from the quality of the writing, and the extent of the research behind it, I must mention the narration which was very engaging.
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- Arfan Iqbal
- 17-12-20
Worth a listen
A pretty fascinating life story told via a well written, at times gripping narrative. However it does at times border on hagiography, which is perhaps unsurprising given the subject at hand.
The narrator does a good job, although there is the occasional mispronounciation it's nothing egregious.
Overall would recommend for fans of Pandit Shankar as well as those with a general interest in Indian Classical Music.
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