John Barham

Who is John Barham?

John Barham is an English classical pianist, composer, arranger, producer and educator, best known for his orchestration of George Harrison albums such as All Things Must Pass and for his association with Indian sitar maestro Ravi Shankar. Barham trained at the Royal College of Music and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, before establishing himself during the mid 1960s as a composer of piano interpretations of Indian classical ragas. He became a student of Shankar, for whose East–West collaborations with Yehudi Menuhin and others he transcribed Indian melodies into Western musical annotation. Through Shankar, Barham began a long friendship with Harrison in 1966, then a member of the Beatles, which assisted Harrison's own education in Indian music as well as his promotion of the genre to Western audiences. Barham collaborated with Harrison on the latter's Wonderwall Music soundtrack album, before providing the orchestral arrangements for All Things Must Pass songs such as "Isn't It a Pity" and "My Sweet Lord", and for Harrison's 1973 album Living in the Material World.