about the coming thunderstorm and the
sea of humanity before him. “I am fright-
ened in case something goes wrong with
so many people,” Shankar told New York
Post rock reporter Al Aronowitz. But in
the end, his trio’s three song set—“Raga
Puriya-Dhanashri,” Rakha’s “Tabla Solo
in Jhaptal,” and “Raga Manj Kmahaj”—
was magical. “He woke up that audience
and took them along with him on this
soaring musical journey,” said Gilles
Malkine, who had just left the stage with
Hardin. “Nobody else could touch that.”
AFTER WOODSTOCK: In 1971 Shankar
headlined Harrison’s Concert for
Bangladesh and his career flourished
for another four decades, during which
he toured widely and taught at sev-
eral universities. The beloved sitar-
ist soured on hippie culture, however,
especially its indulgence in drugs. In
his autobiography Shankar dismissed
rock audiences as “strange young weir-
dos” and did not look back fondly on
his festival gigs, where he said the
audiences were “shrieking, shouting,
smoking, masturbating, and copulat-
ing—all in a drug-crazed state... I used
to tell them, ‘You don’t behave like that
when you go to hear a Bach, Beethoven
or Mozart concert.’ ” Ravi Shankar died
at 92 in 2012.
Melanie
11–11:30 PM
Melanie—born Melanie Safka—was a
doe-eyed, largely unknown 22-year-old
singer-songwriter from Queens (later
Long Branch, New Jersey) who had
come up through Greenwich Village
folk clubs. She had just released a debut
single that would become a modest hit,
“Beautiful People.” Her husband, pro-
ducer Peter Schekeryk, had asked the
organizers—whose offices were in the
same building as his—if she could per-
form at the festival. She arrived with
her mother, also a singer, and when the
Incredible String Band balked at going
on in the rain, Melanie (see interview,
page 37) stepped in. Before she took
the stage, announcer John Morris had
exhorted the audience, “This is the
INITIALLY FRIGHTENED BY THE
sheer size of the crowd, sitarist
Ravi Shankar gathered his
bandmates and his nerve and
produced a stunning performance,
despite the heavy rainstorm that
began during his set.