Music Of The Desert

An early breakthrough disk in the popularising of world and more particularly West African music, Talking Timbuktu by Ali Farka Toure with Ry Cooder makes even more musical sense lisened to in today's more knowledgeable context. Initially, I listened to this looking out for bluesy influences and the interplay between Ali's acoustic and Ry's slide guitar but listening again with hindsight, it is clear this is predominantly a strictly African disk with what are now familiar sounds and refrains. The spike fiddle and percussion additions are especially atmospheric. The track Ai Du is the closest to blues with the musicians augmented by the western rhythm section of Jim Keltner and John Patitucci and the soulful viola of Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown along with that slide from Mr Cooder. This is most definitely an Ali Farka Toure album however and his own style of music is in no way diminished or diluted by the collaborations. It is also clear that he was very much in the ancient griot tradition of the Mande empire and that any links to the blues are looser and more incidental with the desert blues tag doing nobody any favours. As ever Ry Cooder is a sensitive and apposite partner and adds some very fine playing of his own during a period when his solo career was on hold.