Niafunké (CD - 1999)

Personnel: Ali Farke Toure (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, njarka violin, percussion); Affel Bocoum (vocals, acoustic guitar); Voro Cisse (njurkle traditional guitar); Guidado Diallo (njarka violin); Oumar Toure (congas, background vocals); Hammer Sankare (calabash, background vocals);

Souleye Kane (djembe); Djeneba Doukoure, Fatoumata Traore, Hamidou Sare (background vocals).

Recorded in Niafunke, Mali and Livingston, The Church & Elephant Studios, London, England. Includes liner notes by Nick Gold & Ali Farke Toure.

NIAFUNKE was nominated for the 2000 Grammy Award for Best World Music Album.

Personnel: Ali Farka Touré (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, percussion); Afel Bocoum (vocals, acoustic guitar); Souleye Kane (djembe); Fatoumata Traore, Hamidou Sare, Djeneba Traoré, Djeneba Doukoure (background vocals).

Audio Mixers: Simon Burwell; Jerry Boys.

Liner Note Authors: Ali Farka Touré; Nick Gold .

Recording information: Church Studios, Crouch End, London, England; Elephant Studios, London, England; Livingston Studios, London, England; Niafunké, Mali.

Photographer: Thomas Dorn.

Malian guitarist Ali Farka Toure's music has always managed global travel with ease and musical grace, shrinking the miles between Western Africa and the Mississippi Delta and seemingly visiting every city in between. Toure has received his share of accolades for blurring the lines between his contemporary/traditional fingerpicking style and "country blues." Toure has routinely collaborated with musicians from other cultures and musical genres, most notably the prolific and internationally influenced Ry Cooder on their widely acclaimed 1994 album Talking Timbuktu. He establishes a firm aesthetic residence on Niafunké, his first and most welcome CD in five years. Niafunké was recorded using a state-of-the-art portable studio in Toure's home village of Niafunke, which clearly lends a decisive authentic flavor and sense of musical place to the disc. Each tune is a lithe and resonant labyrinth of call-and-response patterns: a fingerpicked guitar speaks to a one-stringed njarka fiddle, calabash pummelings weave into those of the conga drums, and a lively small chorus answers Toure's authoritative lead vocals. A couple of the best cuts include "Ali's Here" and "Saukare." A beautifully rendered and intoxicating record. ~ Becky Byrkit

Ali Farka Toure is a guitarist from Mali whose style draws almost equally upon the folk music of his homeland and American blues, particularly the dark and minimal repetitive-trance style of John Lee Hooker and acoustic country blues guitarists such as Mississippi John Hurt. In the past, his (uniformly fine) albums have featured guest shots and collaborations with Ry Cooder and members of the Irish trad-folk group the Chieftans, but here it's back to the roots.

Recorded in a Toure's home village in Mali, with a small group of singers and players, NIAFUNKE is delightfully low-key and captivating. Beautifully picked acoustic guitar combines with shimmering electric guitar percussion, voices, and violin to weave the spacious, circular melodies that explore the common ground shared by the blues and African folk music. "Tulumba" glimmers like a desert mirage, and "Pieter Botha" sounds like a Delta blues tune played by a wandering musician while traveling through Spain and England in the Middle Ages. minimize