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he next day, with Ali and Afel on acoustic guitars, Hamma on calabash and Guidado on njarka one-string violin, I heard Group Asco play. Ali had told me about his ‘petit group’ and they were great. He exposed melodies, riffs, hooks and rhythm, all the while adopting ideas from the other musicians. There wasn’t much talking involved in refining these songs as Ali directed from his guitar with a foot tap here and a look there. I always loved watching Ali play guitar. It was like an extension of him and his fingers and hands moved with such grace and authority. And every note was so definite, so meant.
T We recorded some songs with me sit-
ting in Ali’s bedroom monitoring the DAT while he and the group sat playing on the porch. (Listening back to Ali’s count-ins is funny – they seem so random, including a count-down from ten.) I knew we had to record the group and bring them on tour and that’s we did for The Source.
Ali was constantly in demand in Nia- funke. He visited the fields to check on the land and water pumps, worked on his car, had a constant flow of visitors seeking advice, help or a passport photo (which he obliged with a custom polaroid). In the evening he liked to play cards and then fire up the generator (there was no elec- tricity in Niafunké), set up the video and television and play James Brown videos to the neighbourhood.
First UK folk festival appearance, 1988
Suddenly we had to leave to make my flight home. Ali raced back to Bamako, hardly stopping on the way. In Bamako there were a lot of people stirring in the streets and Ali shooed them out of the way using blasts of Dimi Mint Abba turned up to eleven. Ali got me safely onto my flight. It was 25th March, the night before the coup that ousted Moussa Traoré as president.
Our first Ali Farka Touré cover
I made the journey to Niafunké with Ali many times after that, and in March 2006 in a convoy of 4x4s for his funeral. I wouldn’t be advised to travel there now. Only two weeks ago the barracks in the village of Soumpi, close to Niafunké, were attacked and fourteen people were killed. The mayor of Soumpi is known as Dofana, one of the pieces on The Source, which praises work in cultivation, education and fraternity. F
Our first LP review, from FR37, July 1986
ALI FARKA TOURÉ Disques Esperance ESP 165558
Ali Farka Touré is a guitar player and singer who comes from Gao on the Niger river in East Mali, West Africa. He’s quite famous in that country; Lucy Duran (to whom I am indebted for this small amount of information, there being nothing other than song titles on the cover) tells me that there are many cassettes of his work to be found on sale in the market in Bamako, the capital. I have no idea whether he’s been outside the country; this record comes from France, and Mike Cooper who pointed me at it remembers seeing one other in the distant past.
He really does make quite remarkable music and I would dearly like to know what are the precise influences on it. He sings in the traditional style for that part of Africa , and his guitar work is obviously from the same stream as the ancient styles played on the kora. But by an accident of personal development, there’s an uncanny resemblance to some of the things that Davy Graham evolved in the mid-’60s by fusing blues guitar riffs with Moroccan oud tunes. (I have to say, fan as I am and with no disrespect to Davy, that Ali Farka Touré’s music is in an entirely different class, but the similarity is there). And why does the whole record start, tantalisingly, with the guitar riff from My Girl?
The rather blurred front cover photo shows a robed man in his thirties or forties, surrounded by a large number of (I assume)
wives and children, but with no instrument in sight. The record has him playing steel- string guitar and singing, with a percussion- ist and second voice which might or might not be the same person.
Anybody who enjoys either West African traditional music or country blues would get a real thrill out of this record. Appropriately, you can get it through either Sterns African Record Shop or blues specialists Red Lick.
Ian Anderson
Our first live review, from FR53, Nov 1987 ALI FARKA TOURÉ Mean Fiddler, Harlesden
The first of Andy Kershaw’s resident DJ nights at the illustrious Fiddler found a small but select crowd (advance publicity had failed to give much of a clue as to the nature of the proceedings) initially pre- sented with a curious but entertaining bunch of – let’s not mince our words – floor singers.
Following loud and lengthy Kershaw vinyl selections, heavy on Africa and Louisiana, we were greeted in quick suc- cession by Brendan Croker struggling man- fully with a new, heavily strung 12-string and winning on points, Robin Hitchcock (of Egyptians fame) almost getting to grips with the tuning of a loaned but more con- ventional electric 6-string whilst evoking the ghost of Syd Barrett, and the Bhundu Boys’ Biggie Tembo treating us (I think that’s the word) to a decidedly odd solo
version of the Eagles’ Hotel California. A fair description would be surreal.
However, the lion’s share of the pro- ceedings went to the first London appear- ance by the stunning Ali Farka Touré. The Malian singer/guitarist’s blend of West African traditional styles with the old bones of country blues has already amazed enough people on his Disques Espérance album – sighs of relief were detected from those who worry about these things when the grapevine revealed that, yes, you could get John Lee Hooker and Otis Redding records in Timbuktu in the late ’60s – but the reality is even more staggering. Totally confident and oozing charisma, this tall and very handsome man in a batik robe seems to be one of the most complete musicians – instrument and voice in total sympathy, pushing and relax- ing around each other in an awesome manner. He sings high, he swings mightily. The form and the language is Malian, but nobody who ever heard the country blues greats could miss the connection. Some- where up there, Skip James was probably chuckling a lot.
When, after a few songs, he was joined on stage by Toumani Diabaté, for- saking his usual kora for the role of percus- sionist, the entire audience seemed to have broad grins, swaying bodies and tap- ping feet. The spell was complete. By the time you read this, he’ll have vanished from our shores, less of a mystery than before but more of a legend. He’ll be back in ’88 by all accounts; don’t miss him.
Stella Washburn
Photo: Dave Peabody
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