page_title: The Radha Krsna Temple (album)
section_title: Album recording
hierarchical_section_title: The Radha Krsna Temple (album) / Album recording
caption_attribution_description: English: Mukunda Goswami is talking with George Harrison in the corridors of the Bhaktivedanta Manor
context_page_description: The Radha Krsna Temple is a 1971 album of Vedic devotional songs recorded by the UK branch of the Hare Krishna movement – more formally, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness – who received the artist credit of "Radha Krishna Temple". The album was produced by George Harrison and released on the Beatles' Apple record label. It compiles two hit singles, "Hare Krishna Mantra" and "Govinda", with other Sanskrit-worded mantras and prayers that the Temple devotees recorded with Harrison from July 1969 onwards.
  The recordings reflected Harrison's commitment to the Gaudiya Vaishnava teachings of the movement's leader, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who had sent devotees from San Francisco to London in 1968. The success of the Temple's first single, "Hare Krishna Mantra", helped popularise the Hare Krishna movement in the West, and inspired Harrison's more overtly religious songs on his 1970 triple album All Things Must Pass. Among the Temple members, former jazz musician and future ISKCON leader Mukunda Goswami provided the musical arrangements on the recordings.
context_section_description: In an interview to promote the Beatles' Abbey Road, Harrison told music journalist Ritchie Yorke that he believed fate had intervened to introduce him to Ravi Shankar, and thereby to Indian classical music and Vedic philosophy. He added that, while he was "pretending" to be a Beatle, his mission in life was to promote Indian music and Hindu spirituality in the West. Harrison provided the Radha Krishna Temple with financial assistance and acted as a co-signee of their more permanent accommodation – at Bury Place, close to the British Museum in Bloomsbury. He met Prabhupada in September 1969, at Lennon's Tittenhurst Park estate, as the new premises was being renovated. While also producing Apple acts such as Preston and Doris Troy, Harrison was keen to record further with the Temple devotees and release a full album of their songs. In December, he suggested they come up with further material. Scott was again credited as the engineer at these later Radha Krishna Temple sessions. He has spoken of the challenges of recording the participants, many of whom would not remain stationary during a take, and described the project as "absolutely fascinating".
  The musicians on these recordings included Harrison on guitars and bass; Temple members such as Yamuna on lead vocals; and other devotees on backing vocals, mridanga, harmonium, tambura and kartal. Harrison was much impressed with Yamuna's voice and suggested she could become "a famous rock star". In a 1982 discussion with Mukunda, Harrison said: "I liked the way [Yamuna] sang with conviction, and she sang ['Hare Krishna Mantra'] like she'd been singing it a lot before. It didn't sound like the first [professionally recorded] tune she'd ever sung." Discussing Harrison's role in the studio, Gurudas, Yamuna's husband, has compared him with the Hare Krishna movement's leader, saying: "George was like Prabhupada, he could be a ringmaster – he could just pull everything together."
  The tracks "Sri Guruvastakam" and "Sri Isopanisad" also featured dobro, an instrument that Harrison came to use increasingly during the early 1970s. Arrangements for all the songs on The Radha Krsna Temple were again credited to Mukunda. A student in Paris at the time, and a keyboard player in his university band, Joshua Greene joined the Radha Krishna Temple over the 1969–70 holiday season, taking the devotee name Yogesvara. He recalls participating in sessions held at Abbey Road and Apple Studio, during which he played harmonium on "Govinda Jai Jai". Whereas Harrison had limited the length of the earlier recordings to no more than four minutes, to attract maximum radio play, album tracks such as "Bhaja Bhakata/Arati" and "Bhaja Hunre Mana" extended to over eight minutes.
caption: Harrison and Mukunda at ISKCON's Bhaktivedanta Manor in 1996
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