One of the bands whose discography I have and whose music I listen to when I want to listen to “unknown music” is the Grateful Dead. And while I was listening to them last night, it sounded like it was heavily inspired by Indian classical music (especially Carnatic stuff).
The song I was listening to was “not fade away” from the album GratefulDead (1971). Ok now a little bit of wiki research tells me that this song was originally written by Buddy Holly and the Dead version in this album was a cover. I haven’t listened to the original but I’m really intrigued that the dead version has such a profound Indian influence on it!
Thinking about it, the only Indian connection of the Dead I can think of is that drummer Mickey Hart used to regularly jam with Ustad Allah Rakha. But then considering he was a percussionist, it’s unlikely that the Indian influence came from him!
Anyways it seems like if I listen to this kind of music a bit more, The Grateful Dead may not be “unknown music” for too much longer.
grateful dead did make some psychedelic music early on in their career … and psychedelic music was inspired partly from indian music.