West Meets East

West Meets East is an album by American violinist Yehudi Menuhin and Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, released in Britain in January 1967. It was recorded following their successful duet in June 1966 at the Bath Musical Festival, where they had played some of the same material.

Contents

• 1967 ravi shankar yehudi menuhin west meets east sonata n 3 in a minor op 25
• Musical content
• Track listing
• Personnel
• Songs
• References

The album was issued in America on EMI's Angel Records imprint in June 1967. West Meets East was number 1 on Billboard's Best Selling Classical LP's list for eighteen weeks in 1967 and continued to top that chart through January the following year. It also placed on the mainstream national chart (later the Billboard 200), where it peaked at number 161. In February 1968, the album won the 1967 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance, the first time that an Asian musician had won a Grammy. This recognition coincided with a period of heightened interest in Indian classical music, and particularly Shankar, as Western pop and rock bands such as the Beatles, the Byrds, the Rolling Stones and Traffic all adopted sitar or other aspects of the genre into their sound.

In July 1968, Angel Records announced that West Meets East was the fastest selling LP in the history of the label. The album was the first in a trilogy of "West Meets East" collaborations by Menuhin and Shankar, volumes two and three appearing in 1968 and 1976, respectively. The friendship between the two musicians had begun in India in the early 1950s, after which Menuhin had done much to introduce Western audiences to Indian music.