Raga rock is rock or pop music with a heavy Indian influence, either in its construction, its timbre, or its use of instrumentation, such as the sitar and tabla. More recently, scholars have included British rock music from the 1960s and 1970s that utilizes South Asian musical materials and instruments and Western ideas of South Asia.
Raga rock is not normally considered a specific genre of music, but rather a general aspect of any rock significantly influenced by Indian classical music. Since Indian influences are primarily limited to 1960s rock, most raga rock is limited to that decade, although heavily Indian-derived sounds are found in some post-1960s rock.
Ragas are specific melodic modes used in classical music of South Asia. Thus, any rock songs with obvious Indian influences may be deemed "raga-rock" although the term is frequently used to refer to much more explicitly Indian musical outings. A major influence on raga rock was the Indian classical raga music of Bengali sitarist Ravi Shankar, who himself had become a pop music icon by 1966, following the rise of the raga rock trend.
The advent of raga rock is often traced to the July 1965 release of "See My Friends", a Top 10 single for The Kinks in the UK, although The Yardbirds'"Heart Full of Soul", released the previous month, featured a sitar-like riff by guitarist Jeff Beck.The Byrds' March 1966 single "Eight Miles High" and its B-side "Why" were also influential in originating the musical subgenre. Indeed, the term "raga rock" was coined by The Byrds' publicist in the press releases for the single and was first used in print by journalist Sally Kempton in her review of "Eight Miles High" for The Village Voice. However, in his 1968 Pop Chronicles interview, Byrds member Roger McGuinn denied that "Eight Miles High" was in fact raga rock. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band further elevated the concept of Indian influenced rock music with a 13-minute instrumental titled "East-West", which became the title track of their 1966 album, East-West.
The Beatles' song "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", which first appeared on the band's 1965 album Rubber Soul, was the first Western pop song to incorporate the sitar (played by lead guitarist George Harrison). Harrison's interest in Indian music popularized the genre in the mid-1960s with songs such as "Love You To" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" (Revolver, 1966),"Within You Without You" (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967) and "The Inner Light" (released in 1968 as the B-side of the "Lady Madonna" single).
In the early 1970s, the British progressive rock band Quintessence began to mix elements of Indian classical music with rock and jazz.[13] Later in the decade, guitarist John McLaughlin and his band Shakti introduced a jazz-influenced version of raga rock over the course of three albums.
01 norwegian wood( this bird has flown) hour glass
02 om moody blues
03 i'm the light - blue cheer
04 venus in furs - velvet underground
05 see my friends - kinks
06 raga - buffalo springfield
07 tabla rasa - solar circus
08 she's leaving home - big jim sullivsn
09 blue jay way - lord sitar
10 acka raga - shocking blue
11 raga no.11 - kalacakra
12 babaji (twilight raga)- blue cheer
13 the light of love - humble pie
14 within you without you - jimmy herring
15 winds of change - animals
16 moog raga - byrds
17 raga rock - folkswingers
18 the mad hatter's song - incredible string band
19 girl in your eye - spirit
20 white trash raga - mermen
21 utterly simple - traffic
22 white summer - yardbirds
23 paint it black - rolling stones
24 east-west - butterfield blues band
