Most artists would be happy with a single successful career. Not Mickey Hart. A drummer with the nearly mythic band Grateful Dead, Hart managed to escape the stasis that legends often devolve into by following a path of the spirit that led him to world music. The journey began with a friendship with Indian master drummer Zakir Hussain that spawned 1975's Diga Rhythm Band, an early experiment in worldbeat fusion. Hart's interaction with drummers from around the world sparked an abiding interest in the social and mythological role of the drum in other cultures.
Hart originally ...