Ali Farka Toure, Red & Green | Music
Ali Farka Toure, Red & Green
This article is more than 19 years old(World Circuit)It's been five years since Toure's last album, and though two new sets are promised for next year, this re-release from the guitarist who first brought African desert blues to the west perfectly fills the gap. It consists of two albums, Red and Green (so called because of the original sleeve colours) that were recorded at Radio Mali, where he worked as a sound engineer. Originally released in France in 1984 and 1988, they have been unavailable for years. And though they lack the sophistication of later recordings such as Talking Timbuktu, his Grammy-winning collaboration with Ry Cooder, they have the freshness and timeless appeal of great blues classics.
Red starts with stuttering guitar lines that develop into rolling bluesy riffs with a North African edge, with bursts of virtuoso improvisation matched against Toure's dry, rasping vocals. On the Green album there's a display of rapid-fire vocals backed by the insistent, rhythmic backing of the guitar and the n'goni, the African lute. Even then, his confidence and skill were remarkable.
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