Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

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SHAKTI

East--West fusion group that flourished '75--7, merging elements from Hindustani (Northern Indian) and Karnatic (South Indian) classical music and some Western genres such as jazz into a cohesive musical statement. In the history of such groups, Shakti remains legendary; the Sanskrit-derived word Shakti can be interpreted as 'creative intelligence, beauty and power', an invocation of the Muse in an Indian sense. First lineup: Zakir Hussain, tabla, perc. and vocals; John McLaughlin, guitar and vocals; L. Shankar, violin, viola and vocals; R. Raghavan on mridangam (a South Indian cylindrical drum) and T. H. 'Vikku' Vinayakram on ghatam (a South Indian clay-pot drum), perc. and vocals. Shakti '75 was recorded live at Southampton College, compositions credited to McLaughlin and Shankar. The group could have been seen as a vehicle for McLaughlin or mere progression from his My Goal's Beyond ('71 on Douglas) because of that album's Indian music elements, but its other distinguished participants are all masters in their varying fields of Indian classical music. Raghavan left and the first album was followed by A Handful Of Beauty (regarded by many as their best) and Natural Elements '76--7. Shakti was primarily a live group that happened to record; all their albums were on Columbia/CBS, and Hussain said '94 that the key reason they didn't last longer was that sales never matched those of McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, so there was record company pressure on him to disband what was primarily an acoustic group and play electric music again. Hussain, Shankar and Vinayakram worked together in several combinations in later years; Shakti re-formed to tour India '85; perhaps spurred by Japanese reissue of Shakti's debut album, Moment licensed The Best Of Shakti '94 from Sony.

In late '97 Hussain, McLaughlin and Vinayakram joined Hindustani flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia (who worked with McLaughlin and Jan Garbarek on Hussain's Making Music '97 on ECM) for concerts in England, recorded for possible release under McLaughlin's name on Polygram, incl. old and new tunes.