Word is that Ali Farka Toure died. Blues has its aspects of tradition and experimentation. For me one of the great experimentalists of blues was Toure. It is said he heard Detroit’s John Lee Hooker records coming east to Africa. And was like many smitten. Clearly, parts of the Mali griot musics that went to North America’s American South and then up to the U.S.’s northern industrialist cities had come back to Africa and gained a new set of drones and timbres and keys and fretboard runs. Yes it was conscious, but to hear Hooker in Toure, blues in Afrique, was astounding trance. And what is wrong with conscious trance? Messages like Beethoven’s across the time of foam. Bonde, ASKA, Diraby...
What is wrong my love? It is you I love.
Do not be angry, do not cry.
Do not be sad because of love.
http://www.counterpunch.org/harris03132006.html Corey Harris on Ali, CounterPunch
http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0611,eyre,72469,22.html Ali Farka Toure 1939-2006, Village Voice
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00000062H/ref=pd_sim_m_1/104-6518242-1811161?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance Ali on Amazon
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