L. Shankar

L. Shankar (aka Shenkar) is widely considered a living legend — a Grammy-winning virtuoso vocalist, violinist, composer and producer who has sold over 100 million albums across his solo work and collaborations. A child prodigy born in Madras and raised in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, where his father V. Lakshminarayana was a professor at the Jaffna College of Music, he began vocals at two, violin at five and mridangam at seven. His first public concert was at age seven at the Nallur Kandaswamy temple in Ceylon.

After his family escaped to India in 1958, Shankar and his brothers L. Vaidyanathan and L. Subramaniam formed the legendary Violin Trio with Palghat Mani Iyer, making history in 20th-century Carnatic music. He went on to perform with the most eminent names of the era — Chembai Vaithyanatha Baghavatar, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Alathur Srinivasa Iyer and others — touring throughout India.

In 1973, Shankar and John McLaughlin formed the band that would become Shakti, with Zakir Hussain on tabla and T.H. Vikku Vinayakram on ghatam. He co-wrote all three of the group's groundbreaking albums — works Downbeat's Lee Underwood called "masterpieces" that "will stand tall in recorded history for decades to come." He later recorded 8 world music albums for Germany's ECM label, touring with Jan Garbarek, Trilok Gurtu, Kenny Wheeler, Don Cherry, Ed Blackwell and Naná Vasconcelos.

Shankar invented and designed the 10-string stereophonic Double Violin (the LSD — L. Shankar's Double violin), built by Ken Parker and later adopted by other violinists. The instrument covers the entire range of the orchestra: bass, cello, viola and violin.

A genre-crossing artist, Shankar has scored major films including Martin Scorsese's Grammy-winning The Last Temptation of Christ (co-writing with Peter Gabriel), Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, and the Oscar-winning documentary Born Into Brothels. His pop, rock and electronic albums feature collaborations with Frank Zappa, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Jeff Beck, U2, George Harrison, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Lou Reed, Pete Townshend and many more. He performed at The Prince's Trust Rock Gala, the Human Rights Now World Tour, and Nelson Mandela's 80th Birthday celebration. With Wendy & Lisa (Prince), he wrote and sang the lead vocals on NBC's Heroes theme and series.

In 2020 he released the progressive rock album Chepleeri Dream (Cleopatra Records) featuring Jonathan Davis (Korn), Scott Page (Pink Floyd), Stephen Perkins (Jane's Addiction), Tony Levin and Chester Thompson. He toured the world with a supergroup including longtime colleague T.H. Vikku Vinayakram, his son V. Selvaganesh (2024 Grammy winner), Fazal Qureshi (son of Ustad Alla Rakha) and Swaminathan Selvaganesh.