The fact that former Beatle George Harrison and Pandit Ravi Shankar were friends for almost 35 years has been talked about no end, and their East-meets-West music still plays in plenty of retro bars. Yet, almost no one knows that the duo did a top-secret recording stint for one of their albums at a studio in Royapettah, back in 1996. Titled ‘Chants of India’, the album featured 16 tracks with Indian mantras and sold more than 100,000 copies when it was released in 1997.
“We got a call to book our recording studio... at a time when we were extremely busy. Though we weren’t keen, the fact that it was booked by the Indian government sealed the deal,” says Senthil Kumar, co-founder of Real Image and Media Artists Chennai, a sound and video production firm.
Apparently, the person who made the booking insisted that the whole session should be strictly confidential and asked specifically for H Sridhar - the legendary sound engineer who was A R Rahman’s mainstay for films like ‘Roja’, ‘Gentleman’ and ‘Bombay’ -- who was MAC’s chief audio engineer.
“Sridhar was busy so only I arrived at the studio on that day. The person who made the booking asked where he was and I said that he was occupied,” he adds, speaking to Express from Hong Kong.
And then, he was ushered into the studio where he was shocked to see George Harrison and Ravi Shankar seated at the console. Sridhar was quickly called in, and after the awe gave way, the team recorded straight for five days and nights.
The recordings were mostly done by the sitar maestro, while Harrison played the part of producer. For a mix of mantras from the Vedas, Ravi Shankar apparently opted to use instruments like the cello, flute, tambura and harp instead of his sitar. “Panditji left after the fourth day, but Harrison stayed for the fifth day and took all the mixed recordings back to the US. It was an experience beyond anything,” says Senthil.