Lakshmi Shankar

Born June 16, 1926 into a South-Indian Brahmin family, Lakshmi Shankar is now celebrated as one of India’s most accomplished and enduringly popular vocalists. Although she had an early background in dance and the Carnatic music of South India, her initial vocal training (from Ustad Abdul Rehman Khan) was in the North Indian Patiala Gharana style of Hindustani music. Over the years, she was also taught by such masters as Professor B.R. Deodhar and her brother-in-law, the world-famous sitar player and composer Ravi Shankar, whom she has assisted on many of his projects. Lakshmi was first trained as a dancer of bharat natyam, a classical dance form rooted in the temple culture of South India. She went on to join Uday Shankar’s famed dance troupe, where she met his brother Rajendra (Raju) Shankar (who later became her husband), and the even more renowned Ravi Shankar. A debilitating bout with pleurisy eventually forced to her to quit her first career that had already led her to Bollywood. Yet, to this day, a dancer’s sensibility continues to shine through her vocal performances, in the keen rhythmic vitality of her improvisations and in the sheer robustness of the ornaments and slides with which she graces her melodies. The thrill of her rich, melodious voice, her sense of balance and the emotional range of her singing are some of the traits that make her one of the most prized Indian vocalists of the last fifty years. Lakshmi was also among the first to popularize Indian vocal music in the West. She has numerous recordings to her credit and has lent her voice to many film soundtracks, including Sir Richard Attenborough’s Academy Award-winning Gandhi.