Ali Farka Toure
Mali, 1976–2006
Malian guitarist and singer (1939-2006) from Niafunke on the Niger. Hearing John Lee Hooker he thought at first he was listening to Malian music, and spent his career on the ground that discovery opened: songs in Songhay, Fulfulde and Tamasheq over a one-chord guitar figure that is recognisably the blues and older than it.
MusicRoots documents 3 artists who influenced Ali Farka Toure and 0 artists Ali Farka Toure influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.
Who influenced Ali Farka Toure?
- John Lee Hooker — Hearing Hooker in Bamako in the late 1960s, Toure took him at first for a Malian musician, then understood that the music had come from Africa and gone back changed - the discovery his whole career works from.
- Ray Charles — Ray Charles is one of the American records that reached Bamako in the late sixties and turned Toure toward the guitar he ended up playing.
- Otis Redding — Otis Redding is the other American voice named among those that reached him in Bamako.