Ali Farka Touré
1939–2006
Malian guitarist whose music the West sold as “desert blues” — a label he rejected for the rest of his life.
Ali Ibrahim “Farka” Touré was born in the Timbuktu region of Mali in 1939 and made his home in Niafunké, on the Niger river. His hypnotic, repetitive guitar drew constant comparison to John Lee Hooker — journalists called him “the African John Lee Hooker” — and the comparison first built his international career and then infuriated him: he said he played traditional Songhai music, not the blues, and that the traffic had run the other way. His collaborations with Ry Cooder (Talking Timbuktu, 1994) and Toumani Diabaté brought him a worldwide audience, and he became the godfather of the Festival au Désert, playing its closing concert every year from 2003. He died in Bamako in 2006.