Sitar in popular music
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While the sitar had earlier been used in jazz and Indian film music, it was from the 1960s onwards that various pop artists in the Western world began to experiment with incorporating the sitar, a classical Indian stringed instrument, within their compositions.
Early uses in Western pop music
Before the
Harrison is recognised as having introduced the sitar to pop music due to the Beatles' popularity and cultural influence.[5] He first picked up a sitar on the set of the Beatles' 1965 film Help!, and then purchased one of his own following a discussion about Indian classical music with David Crosby and Roger McGuinn of the Byrds in August 1965. Harrison went on to write and record "Love You To" for the Beatles' 1966 album Revolver as an Indian-style track featuring sitar, tambura and tabla. The following year, he wrote "Within You Without You" in the full Indian classical style and recorded it with musicians from the Asian Music Circle for inclusion on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. From June 1966, he became a student of Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar and subsequently studied in India with Shankar and the latter's protégé Shambhu Das. In addition to introducing other Indian instrumentation on the Beatles' recordings over 1966–68, Harrison played sitar and tambura on "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Across the Universe". In August 1966, Donovan, a friend of The Beatles, released his sitar-centered album Sunshine Superman, featuring Shawn Phillips on sitar.
In early 1966,
Widespread popularity, 1966–1968
Shankar credited Harrison with inspiring "the great sitar explosion" in the West, as many rock guitarists similarly adopted the instrument. A fad for sitars in pop songs soon developed, facilitated by the Danelectro Company's 1967 introduction of the first "electric sitar", known as the "Coral Electric Sitar". This instrument was an electric guitar with a distinctive sitar-like sound, rather than an acoustic sitar of the type traditionally made in India. As the electric sitar was much easier to play than the traditional version, it quickly became the preferred choice of many rock musicians. Guitarists such as Harrison, Jones, Big Jim Sullivan and Shawn Phillips were more dedicated in their approach as sitarists, however.[6] Author Peter Lavezzoli also highlights Traffic's Dave Mason as a guitarist who displayed an obvious skill as a sitar player.[7]
From 1966 onwards, hundreds of songs by pop artists featured sitar.
Elvis Presley had several recordings that feature the electric sitar. These include a 1967 cover of Tommy Tucker's R&B classic "Hi-Heel Sneakers", Mort Shuman's "You'll Think of Me" (1969), Percy Mayfield's "Stranger in My Own Home Town" (1969) and a cover of the Anne Murray country song "Snowbird" (1970). On "Hi-Heel Sneakers" and "Snowbird", the parts were played by session guitarist Harold Bradley, while Reggie Young played the instrument on "You'll Think of Me" and "Stranger in My Own Home Town".[9]
Art-rock bands such as
Subsequent usage
Although the sitar craze had died down by 1970, its distinctive sound had become an indelible part of pop music.
Paul Weller of The Jam briefly used the sitar on the 1980 track 'Pretty Green', from the album Sound Affects. Although it is buried well in the mix over a guitar solo, it can be heard clearly on the Demo Version, found on the Sound Affects 2010 Deluxe Edition.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers used a guitar fitted with a harpsichord-device to simulate a sitar for their 1985 hit "Don't Come Around Here No More". John Renbourn used the instrument prominently during his time with the folk band Pentangle, on songs such as "Once I Had a Sweetheart", "House Carpenter", "Cruel Sister", "Rain and Snow" and "The Snows". Metallica used a sitar during the intro of their 1991 song "Wherever I May Roam". Beck also used a sitar on his 1993 hit 'Loser'.
Although the sitar is not a regular staple in country music, it can be heard in Hank Williams Jr.’s A Country Boy Can Survive off his 1981 studio album The Pressure Is On and was played by Reggie Young, as listed in the ‘Personnel’ section on the album’s WikiPedia page.
Although his period of dedicated sitar study ended in 1968, Harrison continued to champion Indian classical music. In addition to producing recordings by Shankar, Harrison included sitar in "
Nishat Khan performed his Sitar Concerto No.1 at the BBC Proms in 2013 [10]
Stu Mackenzie of Australian psychedelic rock band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard would play sitar on King Gizzard's 2013 album Float Along – Fill Your Lungs.
The sitar is featured prominently in the music of the Japanese neo-psychedelic band Kikagaku Moyo, played by Ryu Kurosawa.
Examples of sitar in songs of other genres
- Behind the Sun - Red Hot Chili Peppers
- Runaway - Janet Jackson
- Colour My World - Petula Clark
- Can't Lose You – Type O Negative
- Captain of Your Ship – Reparata and the Delrons (electric sitar)
- Carpet Man – The 5th Dimension
- Chrome Sitar – T. Rex
- Do It Again – Denny Dias / Steely Dan (electric sitar)
- Every Time You Go Away – Paul Young
- Greed – Tomi Koivusaari - Amorphis
- Holiday Inn – Elton John
- Hooked On a Feeling – B.J. Thomas
- Living on the Ceiling - Blancmange (band)
- Mausam and Escape – Asad Khan (Slumdog Millionaire: Music from the Motion Picture)
- Legendary lovers- Katy Perry
- Metal Heart – Accept[11]
- Om – Moody Blues
- Pretty Tied Up – Izzy Stradlin / Guns N' Roses
- Rolling Home - John Martyn
- Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours – Stevie Wonder
- The Devil's Been Busy - Traveling Wilburys
- Transdermal Celebration and Tried and True – Ween (electric sitar)
- When We Was Fab – George Harrison
- Band of Gold – Freda Payne
- Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time) – The Delfonics
- Cry Like a Baby – The Box Tops
- Love Will Lead You Back – Taylor Dayne
- Glass Hammer regularly uses electric sitar in their songs since the addition of guitarist and sitarist Kamran Alan Shikoh to their line-up in 2009
- Blackbird - Bosco and Peck - 2012
- Down – St. Vincent
See also
Notes
- ^ Lavezzoli 2006, pp. 154–55.
- ^ Lavezzoli 2006, p. 154.
- ^ Lavezzoli 2006, p. 173.
- ^ Sitar and other Indian instrumentation had appeared on the US release of the Beatles' Help! soundtrack album, in an instrumental piece titled "Another Hard Day's Night". These parts were played by British-based Indian session musicians.
- ^ Hunt 2000, p. 109.
- ^ Brend 2005, p. 154.
- ^ Lavezzoli 2006, p. 180.
- ^ Brend 2005, p. 152.
- ^ "Elvis Presley: A Life In Music" St. Martin's Press, July, 1998 Ernst Jorgensen, Foreword by Peter Guralnick. Pages 234–236, 264, 269, 275, 316–317
- ^ "BBC Radio 3 - BBC Proms, 2013, Prom 39, Prom 39 (Part 1): Holst, Nishat Khan & Vaughan Williams, Nishat Khan: Sitar Concerto No. 1 - BBC proms 2013".
- ^ Page about Metal Heart on Discogs
Sources
- Bellman, Jonathan (1998). The Exotic in Western Music. Lebanon, New Hampshire: UPNE. ISBN 1-55553-319-1.
- Brend, Mark (2005). Strange Sounds: Offbeat Instruments and Sonic Experiments in Pop. San Francisco, CA: Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-0-879308551.
- Hunt, Ken (2000). "Meetings by the River". World Music: The Rough Guide (Volume 2: Latin and North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific). London: Rough Guides/Penguin. ISBN 1-85828-636-0.
- Lavezzoli, Peter (2006). The Dawn of Indian Music in the West. New York, NY: Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-2819-3.