The Grammy award, presented by the Recording Academy, is an award for honouring, recognizing, celebrating as well as sustaining the past, present and future of the music industry. The trophy, depicted as a gramophone, is an annual award that marks excellence and achievements in the field of music. For decades, musicians, composers and artists have been competing for this mark of prestige and honour to mark their talent and contribution to the field of music and Indians have once again proved to the world that they are no less in any field. Over the years, there have been many nominations from the Indian music industry to The Recording Academy and some of them went ahead and brought that gramophone home.
Here, we discuss and acknowledge all our fellow Indians that have been the recipients of this global honour.
1. Late Pt. Ravi Shankar
The legendary Indian classical musician Late Pandit Ravi Shankar was the first Indian to win a Grammy and is the only Indian to have won not one but five Grammy awards, the most awards bagged by any Indian. His achievements at the Grammys include a Lifetime Achievement Award, three World Music Album awards, One for his Album and one for his Chamber Music Performance.
2. Sandeep Das
Previously nominated for the Grammy twice in the years 2005 and 2009, Sandeep Das, a Boston based Indian Tabla player and music composer won the Grammy for his collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma for the Silk Road Ensemble, Sing Me Home, which went on to win the Grammy award for the Best World Music Album in the year 2017.
3. Tanvi Shah
An extremely talented singer possessing the experience of having sung in different languages such as Tamil, Hindi, Telegu, Spanish, Portuguese as well as Arabic, Tanvi Shah is the first Indian woman to win the Grammy, sharing it with A R Rahman and Gulzar at the 52nd Grammy Awards under the Best Song Written for Visual Media. She has a running collaboration with A R Rahman and has sung numerous songs for him.
4. Ustad Zakir Hussain
The Indian Tabla maestro and music compose Zakir Hussain has won two Grammy awards. His first award was in the year 1991 for his collaboration with Mickey Hart for their compilation Planet Drum. His second award in the year 2007 was his second collaboration with Mickey Hart, along with Sikiru Adepoju, a Nigerian Percussionist and Giovanni Hidalgo, a Puerto Rican jazz percussionist for the album Global Drum Project, which went ahead to win the Grammy under the Contemporary Music Album category. He was also nominated in the year 2010 for an award for Classical Crossover Album.
5. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt
A Hindustani classical music instrumentalist, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt is a Mohan Veena (Slide Guitar) player. Hailing from the Indian state of Rajasthan, Bhatt is best known for bagging the prestigious Grammy award for his collaboration with Ry Cooder on the album A Meeting by the River which was released on the Water Lily Acoustics Label. He has also collaborated with other Western artists for fusion and pan culture projects.
6. T H Vinayakram
T H Vinayakram, popularly known as Vikku Vinayakram is an Indian percussionist who plays Carnatic music with the ghatam, an earthen pot. He was awarded with a Grammy award in the year 1991 under the category for Best World Music Album for his participation in Mickey Hart’s album Planet Drum.
7. A R Rahman
Been called as the World’s most prominent and prolific film composer by Time magazine, A R Rahman is considered a living legend in India. He was hugely praised and recognized for his work in the award winning Danny Boyle film, Slumdog Millionaire. For this greatly critically acclaimed movie, he won not one but two Grammys, one for Best Compilation Sound track Album and the second for Best Song Written for Visual Media, which he shared with Tanvi Shah and Gulzar for the song Jai Ho. He also won two Oscars for his song composition for the same film.
8. H Sridhar
Late H Sridhar is an Indian sound engineer who collaborated with A R Rahman and won a Grammy for his work under the category Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media. He also worked with sound engineering and mixing for international artists such as George Harrison from the Beatles, John McNaughlin, John Neptune Kaizan and Indian maestros such as Late Pandit Ravi Shankar, L.Shankar and Ustad Zakir Hussain.
9. P A Deepak
P A Deepak is an Indian sound mix engineer and record producer. He was awarded with the Grammy award in the year 2010 for his work and contribution to the movie Slumdog Millionaire under the category Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media. In the year 2015, he also received a certificate of honour from The Recording Academy, recognizing his contribution as the Surround Mix Engineer to the Grammy Winning Album Winds of Samsara at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards.
10. Ricky Kej
Originating from Bangalore city, Ricky Kej is an Indian music producer, composer, musician and a popular environmentalist. He bagged the Grammy award in the year 2015 for his widely accredited album Winds of Samsara, which symbolized peace and harmony, which was in collaboration with Wouter Kellerman, a South African flautist.
Another special mention goes to Neela Vaswani, an artist and activist of Indian origin who was awarded the Grammy award under the Best Children’s Album category for her work I am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up For Education And Changed The World (Malala Yousufzai) in the year 2015, same as Ricky Kej.
Apart from these winners of the prestigious Grammy award, every year there are many artists, composers, music producers and mixers that get nominated for the Grammys such as Anoushka Shankar, who was nominated in the years 2002, 2012, 2014, 2015 as well as 2016, Ravi Shankar, Zubin Mehta and many more.