Ali Farka Toure Overview

Ali Farka Toure has been called the "John Lee Hooker of Africa": if it's often said that the blues are a reworking of African tribal rhythms to fit the African-American experience, then Toure has aligned the blues back to African life.... [more]

Ali Farka Toure has been called the "John Lee Hooker of Africa": if it's often said that the blues are a reworking of African tribal rhythms to fit the African-American experience, then Toure has aligned the blues back to African life. Since he was born into nobility, a musical career was strongly discouraged in his native Timbuktu. Like any good bluesman, Toure rebelled and took up the gurkel, a single-stringed African guitar chosen for its supposed supernatural abilities. He also mastered the n'jarka, a single-string fiddle, which can be heard in many of his performances. In 1956, he saw a show by the great Guinean guitarist Ketita Fodeba, which so impressed him that he began adapting traditional gurkel songs for the acoustic guitar. But the real transformation came when he encountered the likes of Hooker and Lightnin' Hopkins in the late 1960s. At first, Toure thought that these were simply Americans playing Malian music -- even after he realized the truth, he remained convinced that the roots of American blues were based in Malian traditions. While working as a sound engineer at Radio Nationale du Mali during the 1970s, Toure's guitar went electric with Hooker-esque, mid-tempo, stomping rhythms. Toure's music invokes the low-pitched melodies of African singing -- in several languages -- combined with a raunchy, often minimally accompanied downbeat. According to the artist himself, his songs are about 'education, work, love, and society.' But as blues-based and broad-themed as these songs are, they escaped Western attention for many years, in part because of their foreign-language lyrics. However, the burgeoning world music trend that hit the West in the late 1980s proved fertile ground for a crossover. He began touring the United States and Europe, sometimes collaborating with acts like Taj Mahal and the Chieftans. His unique style subsequently attracted the attention of Ry Cooder, that peripatetic force in world music. In 1994, they recorded "Talking Timbuktu" together, which brought Toure the most mainstream attention yet and promptly won him a Grammy. As Taj Mahal has commented, "That guy can play! He's got it. He knows where it started and he knows where he's going." It is a true testimony to modern music that it has come full-circle, returning to its roots with an entirely new flavor. [show less]