Birthday Special: Shivamani of ‘Asia Electric’, to whose beat the world dances

Mumbai, December 1 (IANS). ‘Drums Shivmani’ is not a new or unknown name. The birthday of Ananthakrishnan Shivamani, who made the world dance to his magical rhythm, is on December 1. Born in Chennai in the year 1959, Ananthakrishnan Shivamani is today known by just one name, Drums Shivamani. When he comes on stage, it seems as if the heartbeat of the whole earth is recorded in his drums. Drum, Octoban, Darbuka, Ghatam, Kanjira, Udukai, any percussion instrument comes into their hands, the magic begins. One moment Carnatic classical rhythms, the next African tunes, then rock, jazz and electronic beats, he creates such music that the listener is forced to dance. Shivamani has his own supergroup, Asia Electric. In this he is accompanied by the king of guitar Neeladhri Kumar, jazz legend Lewis Banks and bass wizard Ravi Chari. In this band’s live concert, people stand and clap for hours. The second group is Silk and Shraddha, here too they combine music from all over the world. However, very few people know that he also had to face many difficulties in the beginning of his career. In an old interview, Shivamani recalled the first scary and funny day of his life when the audience even threw eggs and bottles at him. He said: “My first jazz concert was with trumpeter Frank Dubier. During the session in the studio, Frank liked my drumming so much that he invited me on stage live with his big band. I was very happy. But as soon as I started playing on stage for 2-4 minutes, the audience suddenly started throwing bottles, eggs and tomatoes at me! Didn’t break, I thought, if people don’t like it, there is something about that day practiced and today everyone has played drums and percussion in many iconic songs including ‘Roja’, ‘Dil Se’, ‘Guru’, ‘Kabul Express’, everyone loves his drums in the field of cricket match of chennai super kings dance to his beat also in the 2008 and 2010 IPL trophy celebrations he also acted in films in the year 1986 he appeared in Telugu film ‘Padmati Sandhya Ragam’.In the year 2019 has the Government of India honored him with Padma Shri –IANS MT/ABM