Vieux Farka Tourà© helped introduce Malian music to the U.S. He's back with album 6
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- 01 Sep 2022
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NPR's Shannon Bond talks with Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Toure, known as "the Hendrix of the Sahara," about his new album.
SHANNON BOND, HOST:
One of the leading exports from the landlocked West African country of Mali is music - a rich, soulful and technically demanding music that's enchanted American audiences for about three decades now. And one of the artists responsible for that distinction is Vieux Farka Toure. He's out with his sixth solo album, "Les Racines," and joins us now from Bamako, Mali. Welcome to the program, Vieux.
VIEUX FARKA TOURE: Thank you so much for having me here.
BOND: And actually, I should say welcome back. You joined us on WEEKEND EDITION 10 years ago...
TOURE: Yes.
BOND: ...When you released a collaboration - right? - with the Israeli keyboardist Idan Raichel.
TOURE: Yes.
BOND: You've made music with a lot of different people over these years - with Dave Matthews, John Scofield, among others. Talk to me a little bit about what you get out of these collaborations. What's your approach?
TOURE: I think sometime it's good to do the collaboration with other musician from outside your country and outside your culture to see, OK, what kind of music do we going to have without just what are you doing all the time. It give you, like, another chance, another, like, idea from what's going on, you know?
BOND: Right, broadening how you might be playing.
TOURE: Yeah.
BOND: And, of course, it was your father, the celebrated guitarist Ali Farka Toure, who introduced many U.S. listeners to Malian music. But I wonder if you could talk a little more about how you might be influenced, you know, by American music and some of these other collaborations you've done.
TOURE: I think I want to say exactly what my father used to say. He said it's not American bluesman. It's an African bluesman living in the United States. So every morning, my father used to play, like, the John Lee Hookers and B.B. Kings and, you know, Eric Clapton, you know, this kind of music.
BOND: Sort of bringing that music back home to where it started. Read More...
