One of my favorite musicians
died yesterday.
Ali Farka Touré, the self-taught Malian guitarist and songwriter who merged West African traditions with the blues and carried his music to a worldwide audience, winning two Grammy Awards, died in his sleep on Monday at his farm in the village of Niafunke in northwestern Mali, the Ministry of Culture of Mali announced.
One of his Grammy's was for "Talking Timbuktu" in which he collaberated with a Santa Monica local and legendary guitarist, Ry Cooder. The album is still one of my favorite all time albums. The layers of souund were hypnotic and no matter where you played it it just fit right in.
In an interview yesterday, Mr. Cooder said: "It's important for a traditional performer to be coming from a place and tradition, and most people who are like that tend to be part of their scene rather than transcendent of their scene. That's what their calling is all about. But Ali was a seeker. There was powerful psychology there. He was not governed by anything. He was free to move about in his mind."
Mr. Touré forged connections between the hypnotic modal riffs of Malian songs and the driving one-chord boogie of American bluesmen like John Lee Hooker; he mingled the plucked patterns of traditional songs with the aggressive lead-guitar lines of rock. He sang in various West African languages -- his own Sonrai as well as Songhai, Bambara, Peul, Tamasheck and others -- reflecting the traditional foundations of the songs he wrote. His lyrics, in West African style, represented the conscience of a community, urging listeners to work hard, honor the past and act virtuously.
I listened to the album while wandering the ruins of Greece and while sitting on the beaches of Thailand. If you have never heard it or of Ali Farka Toure I highly resommend picking up Talking Timbuktu.
Music lost a legend.
(h/t to TBogg)