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Published: 2006
Category: World
March 7, 2006 - Ali Farka Toure died in his sleep last night. In his native Mali, there are tears for the man who took his country's music and blended it with the American blues of the Deep South to produce CDs of piercing originality and astonishing beauty. In the rest of the world, this is a day of discovery --- his obituaries alert a large new audience that a giant walked among us.
Aki Farka Toure was born almost 70 years ago in a small town 50 miles from Timbuktu. His family was large; he had no formal schooling. He did, from an early age, work the land, and it was the land that was his first and best-loved teacher. On the farm, he learned not just the usefulness of his labor, but the magic --- although he was a Muslim, he believed also in spirits who live beneath the surface of the River Niger and control both cosmic destiny and mundane reality.
His grandmother was a priestess in "spirit ceremonies." He attended often, and fell under the spell of the music. At 12, he made his own guitar. Years later, he heard American blues masters, notably John Lee Hooker. He could hear the farm in Hooker's music, he could smell the dirt. The marriage between Africa and America was inevitable --- the music Ali Farka Toure invented is now called "desert blues."
This music, even at its most aggressively joyous, is always delicate. This seems wrong. Ali Farka Toure was huge, and in his flowing robes, almost biblical in appearance. He had the pride of a man who worked with his hands --- he always listed his occupation as "farmer." But those big hands could pluck notes that quieted the air, even as his rhythms set your feet moving.
Fame came several times, most recently when Ry Cooder --- the American guitarist responsible for Buena Vista Social Club --- recorded a CD of duets with him. Talking Timbuktu stayed at the top of the World Music charts and won a Grammy. Ali Farka Toure's response was to go home.
He wasn't kidding. His neighbors elected him mayor. He spent his music royalties to dredge the river and irrigate the fields; when pressed, he recorded in a slapped-together studio powered by a portable generator. His 40-acre farm, his 11 children and his community came first. "If I eat, they eat," he said. "What I drink, they drink. What I wear, they wear. And I live with the river all the time."
His latest CD, the Grammy-winning In the Heart of the Moon, is a collection of subtle duets with his fellow countryman Toumani Diabate. It's lovely, but I wouldn't start there; I'm a bigger fan of his early music, which fairly bursts with the brilliance of his guitar. Clapton, King, Hooker --- they've got nothing on this guy. And the more acoustic the recording, the more you can hear why.
I've already written about The Source. Let me now urge Ali Farka Toure on you. It's a bright collection of songs about “education, work, love and society” --- not that you'll understand a word of it. You'll have no trouble, though, falling in love with the sound, the sheer musicality of his playing. The foot-stomping rhythm. The mind-bending guitar runs. And that down home, country voice.
"For some people, Timbuktu is a place at the end of nowhere," Ali Farka Toure said. "But that's not true. I'm from Timbuktu, and I can tell you that it's right in the center of the world." The center of World Music, in any event. By the river where he learned to play like a god.
--- by Jesse Kornbluth, for HeadButler.com
To buy 'Ali Farka Toure' from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy 'Talking Timbuktu' from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy 'In the Heart of the Moon' from Amazon.com, click here.