Lakshminarayana Shankar

Violinist, singer, and composer Lakshminarayana Shankar - born April 26, 1950, in Madras, India – is better known as L. Shankar. Raised in a musical household in Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka) - his father was violinist and singer V. Lakshminarayana and his mother taught at Jaffna College of Music – he learned to play violin as a child and performed publicly for the first time at the age of seven years old. He traveled to the United States in 1969 and studied ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. During this time, he met jazz greats such as Ornette Coleman, Jimmy Garrison, John McLaughlin, and others. He began playing professionally in 1972, eventually forming the group Shakti with guitarist John McLaughlin and releasing three albums with the group: Shakti (1975), A Handful of Beauty (1976), and Natural Elements (1977). After Shakti split, L. Shankar went on to work with Frank Zappa before releasing his debut solo album Touch Me There (1979). Further solo albums include Who’s to Know (1980), Vision (1983), Song for Everyone (1985), The Epidemics (1986), Eye Catcher (1987), Nobody Told Me (1990), Celestial Body (2004), In a Box (2012), and Chepleeri Dream (2020). Outside of his solo work, he co-wrote – with Peter Gabriel - the soundtrack for the 1989 film The Last Temptation of Christ, winning a Grammy Award in the process. L. Shankar worked on several Peter Gabriel albums over the years as well as recording with Phil Collins, Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Sting, Elton John, Yoko Ono, and many others.

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