In the 1960s Ravi Shankar became Mr. Indian Music to
a world of young musicians, influencing the direction of the Beatles and
psychedelic rock. As noted in the booklet essay accompanying Rare and Glorious, the accomplished
sitar player came from a family of musical ambassadors to the West that
performed in London
as early as 1923. He released his first American LP in 1955 and although the
new compilation doesn’t reach that far into his catalog, it offers a
cross-section of tracks recorded from the ’60s through the ’80s. Rising from a
morphing, celestial sea of sound, Shankar’s fast fingering outraces the most
dexterous fretboard displays in rock guitar—and the master never breaks a sweat.
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