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Shakti Albums

Shakti: Natural Elements [Musikkassette]

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03/17/2008 03:34 PM

Celebrity baseball fever, catch it with Billy Crystal

So the commissioner’s office granting Billy Crystal permission to suit up as a New York Yankee for a spring game Thursday against the Pittsburgh Pirates—a charming experiment or a harmful pattern?I mean, for a major-league team to actually sign a comedian and actor to a one-day contract this way?”My only concern for Billy is that [...]

03/13/2008 01:35 PM

Stars, diamonds, ostrich- feather fans … this celebrity …

Sport Relief Does The Apprentice (BBC1) is the strident child of charity and celebrity. The sport is in putting five celebrities in a sack and waiting for them to start killing each other. You won’t wait long. Sir Alan Sugar ran through their claims to fame in case, as he said drily, “Some of the viewers [...]

03/13/2008 01:35 PM

Handbags clobbered by celebrity fatigue

It’s all over for the “it” bag - or so says consumer research specialist Mintel. Fashion shoppers - mostly female - are finally losing their passion for celebrity-endorsed handbags that can cost thousands of pounds each. The market for big-ticket, big-name bags, as sported by the likes of Kate Moss and Victoria Beckham, has been expanding [...]

03/13/2008 09:34 AM

How SXSW parties kick it VIP-style

When Kirsten Dunst was spotted last year during South by Southwest, the A-list star most certainly was not languishing in a long line or grooving with the festival masses. Rather she was, as one American-Statesman staffer blogged, ” … at the Spin Party, watching Kings of Leon and puffing cigarette after cigarette.” That’s right, like [...]

03/13/2008 09:34 AM

Claudia Thomas, MD: A Pioneer on Two Fronts

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) is honored to recognize a surgeon who heals, inspires and encourages others. Claudia Thomas, MD, the first black female orthopaedic surgeon in her field, was presented today with the Academy’s 2008 Diversity Award at the 75th Annual Meeting. Dr. Thomas has worked throughout her residency and practice to recruit and retain individuals who [...]

Shakti Biography

Shakti As jazz-rock fusion pioneer John McLaughlin delved deeper into Eastern spirituality and mysticism, he developed a corresponding interest in the music of South India. Following the collapse of the second version of the Mahavishnu Orchestra in 1975, McLaughlin put together Shakti, an outfit dedicated to fusing high-energy jazz and Indian music. In addition to McLaughlin (who played acoustic guitar instead of his customary electric), Shakti featured violinist Lakshminarayana Shankar, tabla player Zakir Hussain, and mridangam players T.H. "Vikku" Vinayakram and Ramnad V. Raghavan. The group's innovative self-titled debut was released in the summer of 1975, after which Raghavan departed, leaving them a quartet. Two further Shakti albums -- 1976's A Handful of Beauty and 1977's Natural Elements -- appeared before McLaughlin elected to move on to other projects. In 1999, McLaughlin reunited with Hussain and Vinayakram for a new double-disc album, Remember Shakti, which also featured bansuri master Hariprasad Chaurasia. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide

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