Raga rock is rock or pop music with a pronounced Indian influence, either in its construction, its timbre, or its use of Indian musical instruments, such as the sitar, tambura, and tabla. The term "raga" refers to the specific melodic modes used in Indian classical music.
The style emerged as part of the psychedelic rock aesthetic in the 1960s. Most raga rock recordings originate from that decade, although there are subsequent examples of Indian-derived sounds in rock and pop music, particularly during the 1990s.
Development
Definition
Ragas are specific melodic modes used in the classical music of the Indian subcontinent. The term "raga rock" originated in March 1966 as a description of rock music that featured Indian sitar styling. According to musicologist Jonathan Bellman, citing Lillian Roxon's 1969 book Rock Encyclopedia: "This catchphrase eventually came to describe any Rock song that evoked an Indian or general Oriental mood, whether by use of sitar or another instrument imitating it." Music journalist Rob Chapman says the phrase was a "catch-all term" and "something of a misnomer", since it was often applied to any piece of rock music that "used non-European instrumentation or music styles to denote its exotic qualities".
A major influence on raga rock was the music of Bengali sitarist Ravi Shankar. He himself became a pop music icon in 1966, following the rise of the raga rock trend. Rock's use of elements from the Indian classical tradition included:
- sitar (usually serving the role of an electric guitar)
- drone, provided by tambura in raga performances and by Indian harmonium in vocal pieces
- modal melodies based on Indian scales
- vocal stylings
- additive, rather than divisive, rhythms (tal)
- question-and-answer interplay (jawab-sawal) between lead instruments
- lead instruments mirroring the vocal line
- lyrical themes related to mysticism or religious symbolism.
Don Snowden of The Los Angeles Times acknowledges the 1960s raga rock movement, as well as Santana's mix of blues rock and Afro-Cuban percussion later in the decade, as parts of a broader phenomenon that would come to be known as worldbeat in the 1980s.
Antecedents
Writing for Crawdaddy! in December 1966, Sandy Pearlman traced the origins of raga rock to folk music, specifically the drone-producing guitar tunings which American folk musician Sandy Bull had been incorporating into his music since 1963. More recently, Chapman and author John Schaefer have both noted that English folk guitarist Davey Graham's raga-tinged arrangement of the Irish ballad "She Moved Through the Fair", from 1963's From a London Hootenanny EP, predated the raga rock experimentation of 1960s rock groups by two years.
1960s
Early examples
Music researcher William Echard states that "Heart Full of Soul" by the Yardbirds, which was released in June 1965, "is frequently cited as a key text in starting the trend" towards incorporating Indian-inspired elements in rock music. An Indian sitarist and a tabla player accompanied the Yardbirds on a demo recording of the song, but only the tabla part was deemed usable. Instead, Jeff Beck emulated the sitar figure, tone and accompanying drone on the electric guitar for the master recording. The song reached number 2 on the UK chart and number 9 in the US.
According to Rob Chapman, the other record "chiefly credited with introducing raga motifs into Western pop" is the Kinks' July 1965 single "See My Friends", which was another top-ten hit in the UK. Written by Ray Davies and inspired by a visit to India, the song used open-tuned guitars to imitate the drone produced by an Indian tambura. Davies' vocal affectations added to the track's Indian quality; in author Peter Lavezzoli's description, "See My Friends" was "the first pop song to evoke an Indian feel". Before either of these examples, the Beatles' April 1965 single "Ticket to Ride", which was number 1 in many countries around the world, featured a melody that author Ian MacDonald terms "raga-like" over a subtle Indian drone produced by electric guitars.
While "Heart Full of Soul" and "See My Friends" were both influential on the emerging trend, according to author Jon Savage, "the first truly mass exposure" was through the Beatles' 1965 film Help!, which included incidental music played by Indian session musicians. Writing in 1997, Jonathan Bellman commented that the Yardbirds and Kinks recordings were often overlooked in discussions of raga rock's origins, as history instead highlighted the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)". Issued in December 1965 on the band's Rubber Soul album, the folk-styled "Norwegian Wood" was the first Western pop song to incorporate the sitar, which was played by lead guitarist George Harrison, and the first to feature Indian instrumentation played by a rock musician. The song's popularity inspired a wave of interest in the sitar and Indian sounds, a phenomenon that Shankar later called "the great sitar explosion". According to authors Nicholas Schaffner and Bernard Gendron, raga rock was inaugurated by the release of "Norwegian Wood".
The Byrds' raga-rock press conference
210px|thumb|left|The Byrds hosting their "raga rock" press conference for the release of "[[Eight Miles High" in March 1966]]
The Byrds' March 1966 single "Eight Miles High" and its B-side, "Why", were also influential in originating the subgenre. Whereas earlier recordings by the Kinks, the Yardbirds and the Beatles had used Indian sounds to complement standard song forms, the Byrds incorporated the improvisational technique typical of Shankar's work and of John Coltrane's jazz interpretations of ragas. In his 1968 Pop Chronicles interview, however, Byrds guitarist Roger McGuinn denied that "Eight Miles High" was raga rock; co-writer David Crosby also dismissed the term. While many listeners assumed that the lead instrument on these and other songs on the Byrds' Fifth Dimension album was a sitar, McGuinn in fact played a Rickenbacker 12-string electric guitar throughout, and had customised his guitar amplifier to achieve the sitar-like sound.
The term "raga rock" was coined by the Byrds' publicist in press releases for "Eight Miles High" and was first used in print by Sally Kempton of The Village Voice in her report of the band's press conference for the single's release. The press conference was organised by former Beatles publicist Derek Taylor and took place in New York on 28 March, with a sitar symbolically placed in front of the table where the Byrds sat. Kempton wrote dismissively of the event, during which McGuinn and Crosby spoke earnestly of the group's adoption of Indian influences, with the two musicians demonstrating raga techniques on sitar and acoustic guitar, respectively, while their two bandmates appeared bored and instead read magazines. Kempton said that the message was lost on those attending the press conference, namely female reporters from teen magazines and conservative-looking representatives from the music industry.
Hit Parader reported on the Byrds demonstrating how "sitar-like sounds" could be played on guitar by tuning the standard E strings down to D; this allowed the guitarist to play in partial open tuning, whereby "the bottom three strings provide the drone sound and the upper strings are bent to play the melody." The term "raga rock" was soon adopted by British music publications such as the New Musical Express and Music Echo, and an early discussion of raga rock appeared in Melody Maker in April. According to Gendron, however, the fusion of Indian and Western sounds continued to be treated with disdain by writers from the American cultural press, who viewed the new subgenre as part of the consolidation of folk rock.
Peak popularity and impact
In May 1966, the Rolling Stones released the raga rock single "Paint It Black", which featured a sitar part played by guitarist Brian Jones and became an international number 1 hit. According to author Mark Brend, the song "spawned a whole subgenre of minor-key psychedelia". The Hollies' song "Bus Stop", released as a single in June, was another example of the style's growing popularity. William Echard identifies the song's sitar-like guitar solo as both an authentic indicator of raga rock and a device seemingly aimed at exploiting the trend.
Along with "Eight Miles High", Echard highlights the Beatles' Revolver album among the "landmark" raga rock music issued in 1966. Released in August, it included both "Love You To", written by George Harrison especially for sitar and tabla interplay, and "Tomorrow Never Knows", written by John Lennon, which featured heavy tambura drone, tape loops and psychedelic instrumentation. The album represented pop music's most overt incorporation of Indian instruments, musical form and philosophy up to that point, with the influence also evident in the use of vocal melisma and in the Indian-inspired guitar solos on "Taxman" and "I'm Only Sleeping".
That same month, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band released the album East-West, the title track of which (originally titled "The Raga") had evolved from their live performances since February. Led by guitarist Mike Bloomfield, the 13-minute instrumental fully explored the modal improvisation introduced by McGuinn on "Eight Miles High". Bloomfield likened the Indian drone to "the sound a bee makes: a steady hum" and said that while the pattern was essentially simple, the "challenge" was in "improvis[ing] a free melody around the one basic drone". In Lavezzoli's view, Bloomfield's playing on "East-West" "opened the door to unlimited freedom of expression for all rock guitarists, from Eric Clapton and Jerry Garcia to Duane Allman and Jimi Hendrix".
During the height of the subgenre's popularity that year, Indian musicians also contributed to its development. Released on the World Pacific record label in June, the Folkswingers' Raga Rock album featured Harihar Rao, a Los Angeles-based sitarist and ethnomusicologist, accompanied by jazz musicians and members of the Wrecking Crew.