African blues or the blues in Africa?

November 13, 1996
Issue 

Radio Mali
Ali Farka Toure
World Circuit through Festival
Reviewed by Norm Dixon

When Ali Farka Toure's sublime music first became widely available outside his west African homeland of Mali, in the late 1980s, it created quite a stir among blues freaks. It has long been a fundamental article of faith among many disciples of African-American music that the blues and other strands of black music in the new world could be traced back to west Africa, where most slaves came from.

But where was the evidence? The first blues recordings did not surface until the 1920s, and written studies on African-American music are relatively recent.

Debate raged nonetheless. One school emphasised a narrowly musicology-based argument: that blues is a musical and verse form indigenous to the US, with no traceable African or European forerunners. Slave-owners cut all cultural, musical and linguistic links with Africa through brutal repression.

Another school, rooted in a wider sociological and political view, argued that African oral traditions survived this repression. African rhythms and melodies, verse structures and even instruments were remembered and passed on, to surface later to varying degrees in African-American work songs, gospel and blues.

The release of Toure's self-titled first album in the UK and the US in 1987, followed by River, Source and finally the monumental 1994 hit collaboration with Ry Cooder on Talking Timbuktu (all on the World Circuit label) strengthened the latter view. With release of Radio Mali, we have an opportunity to hear Toure's priceless '70s radio broadcasts as the people of Mali heard them.

Toure's rhythmic guitar and plaintive vocals, and verse structure in some songs, have a striking affinity to the early recorded rural blues of Robert Johnson, Big Joe Williams and J.B. Lenoir, as well as later acoustic work of John Lee Hooker and others.

Ali Farka Toure is from Niafunké in the dusty central west region of Mali, on the banks of the Niger River. He was born in 1939, the last of nine brothers; the other eight did not survive infancy. He grew up without formal schooling and still considers himself a farmer rather than a musician.

Niafunké is a large village of 20,000 people which makes its living from farming and river trade. It is a centre for both Islam and traditional religions as well as a place where travellers meet from many of Mali's different cultures and languages. The sounds of the djerkel (one-string guitar), njarka (one-string violin) and the ngoni (four-string lute) are important parts of the many ceremonies that punctuate daily life.

Young Toure was fascinated by the music and, despite family disapproval (he did not belong to the caste of traditional griots), became a musician, learning seven Malian languages and the ngoni, njarka and the bamboo flute. Later he added the guitar and various drums to his repertoire.

After independence from France in 1960, the Mali government promoted indigenous culture, and Toure joined a travelling cultural troupe. In 1968, he took his music to an international arts festival in Bulgaria.

Through the '70s, Toure worked as an engineer at Radio Mali and played in its orchestra. His earthy guitar and vocals were broadcast across the country, and this CD contains the best of those brilliant recordings.

Is this music evidence of the source of African-American blues? Of course we'll never know for sure. It is something of a "chicken or egg" debate. As remote as Mali was in the '60s and '70s, African-American blues, soul and funk could be heard on radio and records and were very popular. They undoubtedly influenced local music. But Toure's music is firmly rooted in traditional west African music, and almost certainly its essentials prefigured the recent return of its offspring.

Toure admits he is a great fan of the music of James Brown, John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding,, but, he says, this is because he hears Malian music in them. When he first heard blues records by Brown, Hooker and Albert King he was struck by the thought that "this music has been taken from here".

John Lee Hooker's gutbucket blues reminded him of the music of the nomadic Touareg people. He insists he has not been influenced by Hooker's music but that it has served to confirm the international aspects of his tradition.

Listen to Radio Mali and judge for yourself.

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