L. Shankar has served as an instrumentalist, composer, record producer, arranger and programmer on several recordings. He has released a number of his own recordings, in addition to appearing on other artists' albums. All credits are for violin, except where noted. This is not an exhaustive list of Shankar's works, but a select few titles.
Discography Solo albums Violin Ecstasy (1978 - EMI) Touch Me There (1979—Zappa Records) Who's to Know (1980—ECM) Vision (1984—ECM) Song For Everyone (1985—ECM) Nobody Told Me (1989—ECM) Pancha Nadai Pallavi (1989—ECM) M.R.C.S. (1989—ECM) Soul Searcher (1990—Axiom/Island/PolyGram) Raga Aberi (1995—Music of the World) Enlightenment (Ganesh music) Eternal Light (2000—Moment! Records) Open the Door (2007—Big Deal/Rykodisc) In a Box (2012) The Revelation (2013) Champion (2014) Transcend (2015) Face to Face (2019) Chepleeri Dream (2020) Christmas from India (2021) Over The Stars (2024) Full Moon (2024)
DVDs Peter Gabriel's Secret World Live (1993) Shankar & Gingger's One In A Million (2001 · Silverline)
with T. Viswanathan and T. Ranganathan Pallavi: South Indian Flute Music (1973-Nonesuch)
with Shakti Shakti (1975—CBS) A Handful of Beauty (1976—CBS) Natural Elements (1977—CBS)
with The Epidemics The Epidemics (1986) Do What You Do (1987) Eye Catcher (1989)
as Shankar and Gingger Shankar & Gingger (2001) Celestial Body (2004 · Mondo Melodia)
Guest albums Archie Shepp's Attica Blues (1972) – Violin Clifford Thornton's Communication Network (1972) – Violin Amon Düül II's Wolf City (1972) – Tablas Egberto Gismonti's Circense (1979) – Violin Sérgio Dias's Sérgio Dias (1980) – Violin, songwriting credit Phil Collins' Face Value (1981) (as Shankar) Song: "In The Air Tonight" (1981) – Violin, vocal effects Song: "I Missed Again" (1981) – Violin Song: "Droned" (1981) – Violins, Tamboura, "Voice Drums" Talking Heads's Speaking in Tongues (1983) – Violin Echo & the Bunnymen's Porcupine (1983) – Strings Lou Reed's New Sensations (1984) – Violin Narada Michael Walden's Nature of Things (1985) – Violin Artists United Against Apartheid's Sun City (1985) – Double violin Yoko Ono's Starpeace (1985) – Violin Public Image Ltd.’s Album/Compact disc/Cassette (1986) – Electric violin Ginger Baker's Horses & Trees (1986) – Violin Peter Gabriel's So (1986) – Violin Daryll Dobson's The Mind Electric (1986) – 10-string double violin The Pretenders' Get Close (1986) – Violin Trilok Gurtu's Usfret (1987) – Violin Charly García's Cómo conseguir chicas (1988) – Violin Gary Wright's Who I Am (1988) – Violin Animal Logic's Animal Logic (1989) – Violin Peter Gabriel's Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ (1989) – Double violin, vocals, composer of "Open" (uncredited composer of additional music) Material's Seven Souls (1989) – Violin Swans' The Burning World (1989) – Violin Ryuichi Sakamoto's Beauty (1990) – Violin Maurice Jarre's Jacob's Ladder OST (1990) – Violin, vocals, performer, double violin Its Raining Men - Atlantic Records Jai Uttal's Footprints (1990) – Vocals Peter Gabriel's Us (1992) – Violin Yoko Ono's Walking on Thin Ice (1992) – Violin The Wailing Souls' All Over the World (1992) – Violin, sarod Frank Zappa's You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 6 (1992) Song: "Thirteen" – Electric violin Song: "Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance" – Electric violin Shadowfax's Esperanto (1992) – violin White Sands OST (1992) – Percussion, violin, vocals Adam Rudolph's Moving Pictures (1992) – Violin, vocals Peter Gabriel's Blood of Eden (US) (1993) – Violin Passion - Sources (1989) and (1993) – Violin, producerMark O'Connor's Heroes (1993) – double violin, composer Fernando Saunder's Spin (1993) – Double violin SXL's Into the Outlands (1994) – Electric violin Peter Gabriel's Blood of Eden (UK) (1994) – Violin Peter Gabriel's Secret World Live (1994) – Violin, vocals Bill Laswell's Deconstruction: Celluloid Recordings (1994) – Violin Material's Hallucination Engine (1993) – Violin (Electric) Midge Ure's Breathe (1996) – Vocals, double violin Percy Ensemble Jones' Propeller Music (1996) – Violin Tony Levin's World Diary (1996) – Vocals, double violin Marianne Faithfull's Perfect Stranger: The Island Anthology (1998) – Double violin Saro Cosentino's One's & Zero's (1998) – Vocals, double violin Anthony Hindson and Friends' It's a Curious Life (1999) with Jack Bruce, Tony Williams, Zakir Hussain, Gary Husband and Scott Thunes – Violin Frank Zappa's Everything Is Healing Nicely (1999) – Violin Trilok Gurtu's African Fantasy (1999) – songwriting credit Warren Cuccurullo's The Blue (2000) – Violin Peter Gabriel's OVO (2000) – Violin, vocals Robin DiMaggio's Blue Planet (2001) – Violin, vocals, double violin Peter Murphy's Dust (2002) – Tabla, dholak Peter Gabriel's Long Walk Home: Music from the Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) – Double violin Queen of the Damned: Music from the Motion Picture (2002) – Vocals, double violin Peter Gabriel's Up (2002) – Double violin Mercan Dede's Seyahatname (2003) – Dholak Phil May and the Fallen Angels' Fallen Angels (2003) – Violin Frank Zappa's Halloween (2003) – Violin The Passion of the Christ OST (2004) – Composer, vocals, double violin John McLaughlin's Guitar & Bass (2004) – Violin John McLaughlin's John McLaughlin's Montreux concerts (2004) – Violin, arranger Taufiq's Taalisma (2004) – Percussion, drums James Newton Howard's Hidalgo OST (2004) – Double violin Peter Gabriel's Play the Videos (2004) – Violin, double violin The Pretenders' Pirate Radio (2006) – Violin Sarah Green's Emergency (2006) – Vocals Chris Murphy's Luminous (2007) – Vocals Toto's Falling in Between (2006) (as Shenkar) – Vocals, violin Jonathan Davis and the SFA's Alone I Play (2007) – Violin The Human Abstract's Midheaven (2008) – Vocals Jonathan Davis's Black Labyrinth (2018) – Violin
Compilations / Box set appearances
Best of Music & Rhythm (1983) – Violin, composer, vocals, producer ECM Spectrum, Vol. 1 (1987) – Violin, performer CMPler (1990) – Violin Peter Gabriel's Shaking the Tree (1990) – Double violin Pioneers of the New Age (1991) – Violin Illuminations: An Axiom Compilation (1991) – Arranger, vocals, kanjira, producer, double violin Yoko Ono's Onobox (1992) – Violin Lou Reed's Between Thought and Expression: The Lou Reed Anthology (1992) – Electric violin Plus from Us (1993) – Arranger, vocals, kanjira, producer, double violin Manifestation Axiom Collection 2 (1993) – Arranger The Best of Shakti (1994) Narada Michael Walden's Ecstasy's Dance: The Best of Narada (1996) – Violin John McLaughlin's This is Jazz Vol. 17 (1996) – Violin Phil Collins's Hits (1998) – Violin
Jewels of the Subcontinent (2000) – Performer, double violin Asian Travels, Vol. 1: A Six Degrees Collection (2000) – Performer Echo & the Bunnymen's Crystal Days: 1979–1999 (2001) – Strings The Bombay Jazz Palace (2001) – Violin Meta Collection (2002) – Violin Asana: Soul Practice (2002) – Violin, arranger Classical Indian Collection (2003) – Violin Bhakti Music: Medicine Buddha (2003) – Photography Talking Heads' Once in a Lifetime (2003) – Violin Left of the Dial: Dispatches of the '80s Underground (2004) – Strings Phil Collins's The Platinum Collection (2004) – Violin, tamboura Trilok Gurtu Collection (2005) – Violin Monterey Pop Festival (2007) – Arranger John McLaughlin's Essential John McLaughlin (2007) – Violin
References