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03/14/2006:

""You Have Left Home to Come Home": Memories of Ali Farka Touré"

by Corey Harris
I first heard Ali Farka Touré perform at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1994. At that time many North American audiences were beginning to learn about the man and his music, often through Ry Cooder, one of his early American collaborators. I remember crowds flocking to hear their set, the fans talking about some African guy who plays with Ry Cooder. Seeing the two perform onstage together, it was immediately obvious who was the teacher and who was the student. Cooder, thrilled to play with Ali Farka, backed him up dutifully, supporting each song with carefully placed licks and riffs tossed from his slide guitar like small bombs. In his long boubou, Ali Farka carried himself like the royalty that he was, striking to behold yet immensely approachable. With his easy smile and humble, gracious manner, he was at home in the world.

After his performance, he attended a question and answer session. American audiences had heard of this African bluesman and repeatedly asked him questions about his encounters with blues music and how he began to play. His responses often surprised, like when he answered that blues meant nothing to him, since it is only a color. Even though he was continually typecast as the Malian bluesman who learned guitar listening to John Lee Hooker, this was far from the truth. In fact, Ali Farka's music sounded like blues because it came way before the blues, spirituals, slavery, and the European conquest of the Americas. He embodied the deep roots of centuries of African music; many couldn't see the tree for the leaves, fixated as they were on the record company's marketing of him as the African John Lee Hooker. When asked about his main profession, he would simply say that he was a farmer. To him, music seemed to be something one did anyway, in addition to living one's life and going to work. Many recognized him as a great musician, but it was not his music that made him great, but rather his commitment to others, his town, his country, and his roots which made him great. Even his middle name, Farka, evokes the donkey that carries everyone's burdens on his back. Ali was always ready to help his fellow man, or to make a stranger feel welcome in his desert home. This star did not shine in some far away galaxy, but right here among us, as one of us.
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