As a forerunner to the 1980s world music genre, these live performances of the song brought together Shankar's orchestra of distinguished Indian classical musicians – among them, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Shivkumar Sharma, Alla Rakha, T.V.

Having trained formally in the Hindustani classical idiom and performed as a sitarist since the 1940s,[1][2] Ravi Shankar wrote his first Western pop composition, "I Am Missing You", in the early 1970s.

[8][9] Shankar later recalled of the moment he composed "I Am Missing You": "I don't know how I did it, but one day I wrote an English song without thinking …"[3] He played the composition to his friend, ex-Beatle George Harrison, who liked it immediately.

"[20] In addition to the lyrics being in English rather than Hindi or Bengali, the latter being Shankar's first language,[21] the song's melody follows Western convention,[12] with distinct chord changes instead of the single-chord, monodic[22] drone common to Indian music.

[13] The latter was one element of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound technique that Harrison had recently employed on "Don't Let Me Wait Too Long"[29] and other songs on his self-produced Living in the Material World album.

[34] Author Simon Leng suggests that "[i]t must have been a case of déjà vu for Starr" when he attended the Shankar session, due to the similarity in Harrison's musical arrangements for "I Am Missing You" and the equally Spector-influenced[35] "Photograph".

[42] Harrison played acoustic guitar and autoharp, while other contributions came from jazz musician Tom Scott, on flute[43] and soprano saxophone, and percussionist Emil Richards.

[41] The second version of the song, titled "I Am Missing You (Reprise)", features an arrangement closer to a folk ballad, combining Indian instrumentation such as bansuri and tabla, played by Hariprasad Chaurasia and Alla Rakha, respectively,[44] with acoustic guitars and violins.

[55] Author Robert Rodriguez views "I Am Missing You" as "a pop/Indian delicacy" and recognises its potential for commercial success in a year when a rock version of "The Lord's Prayer" was an international hit for Sister Janet Mead.

[62][63] In an otherwise favourable critique of Shankar Family & Friends, Sachyn Mital of PopMatters considers the pop version of "I Am Missing You" out of place there, saying: "This is one song I would avoid, [al]though its 'Reprise' smoothes over the outlandishness.

[68] As a forerunner to the 1980s world music genre,[69][70] these live performances of "I Am Missing You" brought together Shankar's orchestra of distinguished Indian classical musicians – among them, Rakha, Chaurasia, Shivkumar Sharma, T.V.