Grammy whammies: Notes from 12 Indian musicians that shone at the awards

(April 8, 2022) When Ricky Kej’s soulful notes coupled with Steward Copeland’s eclectic music gave Divine Tides an ethereal essence, one was transported into a reverie of beautiful music. Winning the Grammy in the best new album category at the 64^th annual Grammy Awards ceremony at Las Vegas in April, brought back the spotlight on Indian talent and how it has shone on the world stage. Falguni Shah took home the statue in the children’s music album category. It is shocking though that melody queen Lata Mangeshkar never won a Grammy. Global Indian turns the spotlight on the 12 outstanding musicians from India who have been honoured with the Grammy since 1959. Some are multi-Grammy winners too. Here’s the GI list of maestros…

Pandit Ravi Shankar, sitarist and composer

Shankar (7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012) got nominated for the Grammy awards six times, and won it five times, out of which two were posthumous honours. The sitar maestro was recognised as the world’s best exponent of north Indian classical music in the second half of the 20th century. He developed a distinct style establishing confluence of north Indian classical music with rhythm practices of Carnatic music. Shankar was fond of closing his performances with a piece inspired by the light-classical thumri genre.

The stalwart introduced at least 31 new ragas, including Ahir Lalit, Bhawani Bhairav, Bairagi Rasiya, Yaman Manjh, Tilak Shyam, etc. He also introduced a new percussive sitar technique called Goonga Sitar, in which the strings are muffled with a cloth.

Zubin Mehta, conductor of eastern and western classical music

Mehta (born 29 April 1936) has been nominated an impressive 23 times between 1969 and 2007, winning five times. He is currently the conductor emeritus of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and music director emeritus of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO). Several orchestras throughout the world have bestowed on him the title of honorary conductor.

Recently, Mehta made extensive number of tours with the Bavarian State Opera. Mehta and philanthropist Josef Buchmann have founded the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music as a partnership between the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Tel Aviv University. Mehta is the school’s honorary president and has remained actively involved since its inception.

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Thetakudi Harihara Vinayakram, percussionist

Vinayakram (born 11 August 1942) has been revered as the god of ghatam  (earthern pot) as his renditions with Carnatic music explore the versatility of the ghatam, making it immensely popular. He won in the category of Best World Music Album in 1991 with Ustad Zakir Hussain for their work, Planet Drum.

Vinayakram is the principal of Sri Jaya Ganesh Tala Vadya Vidyalaya in Chennai. The academy was established by his late father and teacher in 1958 and Vinayakram has been taking the legacy forward guiding and producing new stars of Carnatic percussion.

Ustad Zakir Hussain, tabla maestro

Hussain (born 9 March 1951) wears many hats. He is a tabla maestro, percussionist, music producer, composer and film actor. He has been nominated thrice for Grammy bagging the award twice.

 

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The founding member of Bill Laswell’s World Music Supergroup Tabla Beat Science was amongst many musicians invited by President Barack Obama to the International Jazz Day 2016 All-Star Global Concert at the White House. He has been performing at concerts across the globe.

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Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Hindustani classical music instrumentalist

Bhatt (born 27 July 1950), plays the Mohan veena (slide guitar). He was nominated twice and won the Grammy once. Many western musical instruments like violin, harmonium, mandolin, archtop guitar, and electric guitar have been accepted in the Indian classical music. Bhatt developed and named his hybrid slide guitar as Mohan Veena. It has been accepted in the list of Indian classical instrument as well.

He is also known for fusion and pan-cultural collaborations with western artists such as Béla Fleck and Jerry Douglas. He returned to stage after a crucial head surgery last year.

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AR Rahman, music composer

Rahman (born 6 January 1967) has been primarily working in Hindi and Tamil films since his film debut Roja in 1992.  He has been nominated to the Grammy twice in the same year (2008) for best compilation soundtrack album and best song written for visual media for Slumdog Millionnaire, and he won in both the categories. The film fetched him an Oscar as well.

In 2009, he was featured on the Time list of the world’s 100 most influential people and in 2017, he made his debut as a director and writer for Le Musk.  He has recently released a modern-day anthem, Moopilla Thamizhe which is composed, arranged, and produced by him celebrating Tamil culture and the achievements of the people of the state in various fields.

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Sridhar, sound engineer

Sridhar (born 1958 – 1 Dec 2008) was known for his work with AR Rahman. He won the Grammy in 2008 under the best compilation soundtrack album category for the movie Slumdog Millionnaire with AR Rahman and PA Deepak.

In his career, he engineered over 200 films and worked closely with Indian directors of repute. Incidentally, he engineered all songs and background scores for the renowned music director AR Rahman. He had pioneered the use of digital sound for Indian films in the DTS format. He had also engineered and mixed albums for international artists.

PA Deepak, mix engineer and record producer

Deepak (born 10 January 1982) won the Grammy for the movie Slumdog Millionaire with AR Rahman and H Sridhar. He started his career as a guitarist and later became a recording engineer.

 

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Apart from being a full-time mix engineer, he does music programming and plays various string instruments out of pure interest and passion. He has been collaborating with various renowned artists and performing as a music producer and mix engineer.

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Tanvi Shah, recording artist

Tanvi (born on 1 December 1985) is the first Indian woman to win a Grammy. She sings in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Afro-Cuban. She experiments with a wide range of music with her band. Her adaptability has been proven in her collaborative work with international music producers such as Jeremy Hawkins (USA), Gio Ortega (USA), David Batteau (USA), Che Pope (USA), and DJ Salah of Germany.

 

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She has donated her song, Zindagi, produced by JHawk, to the End Polio campaign album that features international artistes such as, Ziggy Marley, Itzhak Perlman, David Sanborn Donovan and members of the Congolese band.

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Gulzar, lyricist

Gulzar (born 18 August 1934) wears the hats of a poet, lyricist, screenwriter, author, and film director. He picked his first Grammy in the category best song written for visual media for Slumdog Millionaire with AR Rahman and Tanvi Shah. He also won an Oscar for it too.  Gulzar made his debut as a lyricist with the 1963 film Bandini and has since worked with many music directors – from RD Burman to AR Rahman. Gulzar has prolifically written lyrics and dialogues for several popular Doordarshan TV series including Jungle Book, Alice in Wonderland, and Hello Zindagi. His latest work as lyricist is for Darlings, a comedy drama releasing this year.

 

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Ricky Kej, music composer

Kej (born 5 August 1981) is not only a music composer but also an environmentalist. He was nominated for the Grammy twice and won both the times, one in 2015  for Winds of Samsara and another in 2022 for his album Divine Tides in the best new age album category. The talented artist has performed at venues in over 30 countries including at the United Nations headquarters in New York and Geneva. Kej was named a UNCCD Land Ambassador at the COP14 to raise public awareness about the challenges of desertification, land degradation, and drought.

He also serves as a UNESCO – MGIEP Global Ambassador for Kindness, ambassador for the Earth Day Network and UNICEF Celebrity Supporter. Kej has performed in three large-scale virtual concerts between April and July 2020 due to the pandemic restrictions with audience of over 75 countries with an estimated viewership of over 200 million people.

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Neela Vaswani, artist

 Neela Vaswani (born 11th September 1974) is an American writer of Indian origin, and professor of creative writing, literature and cultural studies. She narrated the audio version of I am Malala winning Grammy for it in 2015.

She lives in New York City, and is the founder of Storylines Project that she started in partnership with New York Public Library. Before the win Neela did not even know that it is possible for a children’s audio book to be nominated for such a prestigious award.

Falguni Shah, vocalist and composer

Falguni blends ancient classical Indian melodies with contemporary western sounds. She has won the Grammy 2022 under the best children music album category for her album A Colourful World. Since 2020, Falu also teams up with bassist Yasushi Nakamura, drummer Clarence Penn and guitarist, and vocalist Clay Ross to form the American Patchwork Quartet.

 

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The Quartet interprets timeless songs in a modern 21st century perspective, leveraging immigrant histories and backgrounds. The group has been tour performing arts centres around the world, till date.

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