Krishna Das British Indian Singer Born 1947 in Long Island

Early life

Krishna Das was born Jeffrey Kagel on 31 May 1947 on Long Island, New York, and attended Herricks High School. In June 1967 a small group of high school and college students on Long Island formed a rock band called Soft White Underbelly, which eventually turned into Blue Öyster Cult. Kagel, then a student at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, was briefly its lead singer, but he left before the group had settled on a name.

In August 1970 he travelled to India. Like the spiritual teacher Ram Dass before him, he became a devotee of the Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba, known to followers as Maharaj-ji. The name Krishna Das was given to him by the guru, and he adopted it as his own.

Career

Krishna Das is a vocalist and composer known for kirtan, the devotional practice of chanting the names of God in the Hindu tradition. His first album, One Track Heart, appeared in 1996. His catalogue continued to grow through 2025, and it includes Pilgrim Heart (1998), Live... on Earth (2000), Breath of the Heart (2001), Door of Faith (2003), All One (2005), Flow of Grace: Chanting the Hanuman Chalisa (2007), Heart Full of Soul (2008), Heart as Wide as the World (2010), Live Ananda (2012), Kirtan Wallah (2014), Laughing at the Moon (2015), Trust in the Heart (2017), Peace of My Heart (2018) and Home in the Heart (2025). He also took part in Gathering in the Light, a 2007 album made with Baird Hersey and his group Prana, which combines Western music with overtone singing.

Many other musicians have worked on his records. The multi-instrumentalist Hans Christian appears on two albums, and Sting is a guest on Pilgrim Heart. Walter Becker of Steely Dan played bass and co-produced All One, which also features Rick Allen of Def Leppard on drums and Steve Gorn on flute. The tabla player Ty Burhoe plays on several albums, and Rick Rubin produced Breath of the Heart. In April 2014 he issued Kirtan Wallah on his own label, Krishna Das Music. That year he also helped found the Kirtan Wallah Foundation, a nonprofit organisation set up to spread the teachings of Neem Karoli Baba.

Two of his compositions grew out of requests from other teachers. John Friend, the founder of Anusara Yoga, asked him to write a melody for an invocation, Om Nama Shivaya Gurave, which Friend says took shape on a summer night in 1998 at a mountain retreat centre in Utah. In the early 2000s Bernie Glassman, who founded Zen Peacemakers, asked for a melody for the chant "Gates of Sweet Nectar", a traditional Japanese Buddhist chant that Glassman had translated into English. After writing it, Krishna Das found that the tune also suited the Hanuman Chalisa, both in melody and in meaning.

His other published work includes the book Chants of a Lifetime: Searching for a Heart of Gold, a memoir released by Hay House in 2010, and a video recorded with Ram Dass and others, Open to the Infinite, from 1999. A documentary about him, One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das, was made in 2011 and 2012 and directed by Jeremy Frindel. Zeitgeist Films took it up for distribution in the United States, where it was released in May 2013. J Mascis and Devadas wrote its score.

Recognition

His album Live Ananda, released in 2012, was nominated for the 2013 Grammy Award for Best New Age Album, and he performed at the Grammy ceremony that year. The Grammys referred to him as the "Rockstar of Yoga" at the time of the nomination, while the New York Times has described him as the chant master of American yoga.

Personal life

In 2002 Krishna Das pleaded guilty to a federal charge of money laundering and received three years of probation along with six months of house arrest. He discussed the case in a 2013 interview, describing it as a liberating experience.