L. Shankar

Lakshminarayana Shankar, born 4/26/1950 in Madras, India, moved to America in 1969, earned a doctorate in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University, and began playing with jazz musicians like Ornette Coleman, Jimmy Garrison, and John McLaughlin - while working as a Teaching Assistant and Concert Master of the Wesleyan University Chamber Orchestra. He studied with McLaughlin in 1973 and - two years later - they cofounded the group Shakti. L. Shankar's first contact with FZ was at the Berlin show on 9/7/1978), where the bill was shared with Peter Gabriel, Brand X, and Mahavishnu Orchestra; he "guested at several more concerts in the tours that followed. Shankar provided electric violin and/or violin for You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore Vol. 6, EIHN (Everything Is Healing Nicely), and Halloween. He was present at (at least) one of the "soirees" at Zappa's house in '93, that included The Chieftains, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, and the Tuvan Throat Singers. This is evidenced in the A&E Biography on Zappa.