This is one beautiful album, a collaboration between the finest two guitar players that Mali and the US have to offer. Though neither spoke the other's language, the recording proves that some sort of deeper, more fundamental communication was going on. TALKING TIMBUKTU was originally released ... Read review
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Talking Timbuktu
Talking Timbuktu is a groundbreaking record that vividly illustrates the Africa-Blues
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connection in real time. Ali Farka Toure, one of Mali's leading singer-guitarists, has a trance-like, bluesy style that, although deeply rooted in Malian tradition, b...
connection in real time. Ali Farka Toure, one of Mali's leading singer-guitarists, has a trance-like, bluesy style that, although deeply rooted in Malian tradition, b...
connection in real time. Ali Farka Toure, one of Mali's leading singer-guitarists, has a trance-like, bluesy style that, although deeply rooted in Malian tradition, bears astonishing similarity to that of John Lee Hooker or even Canned Heat. It's a mono-chordal vamp, with repetitive song lines cut with shards of blistering solo runs that shimmer like a desert mirage. Toure may be conversant with some blues artists, but it is unlikely that artists like Hooker or Robert Pete Williams ever heard these Malian roots, which makes the connection so uncanny. Ry Cooder, well versed in domestic and world guitar styles, is the perfect counterpoint in these extended songs/jams, his sinewy slide guitar intertwining with his partner's in a super world summit without barriers or borders. --Derek Rath
Advantages: The spiritual enhancer Disadvantages: inaccessible
...fundamental communication was going on. TALKING TIMBUKTU was originally released on 29 March, 1994, and holds the distinction of being the longest-running #1 album in the history of Billboard Magazine's world music charts. Not only did the album debut at #1 (the first ever to do so), but it maintained a stranglehold on the top slot for 32 consecutive weeks. And in 1995, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences recognized what the rest ...
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Label / Distributor: World Circuit / New Note/Pinnacle
Guest Artist(s): Toure, Ali Farka & Ry Cooder
Engineer: Mark Ettel
Producer: Ry Cooder
Pieces in Set: 1
Studio / Live: Studio
Stereo: Stereo
Format: Performer
EAN: 5019842004027
Additional notes
Album Notes: Personnel: Ali Farka Toure (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, 6-string banjo, njarka, percussion), Ry Cooder (acoustic & electric guitars, electric slide guitar, electric mando-guitar, cumbus, mbira, marimba, tamboura, mandolin, bass, samples); Oumar Toure (vocals, congas, bongos); Hamma Sankare (vocals, calabash); Clarence \"Gatemouth\" Brown (electric guitar, viola); John Patitucci (acoustic bass, bass); Jim Keltner (drums).
Album Reviews: Mojo (1/95, p.52) - Included in Mojo's \"25 Best Albums of 1994\" - \"A sprung cushion of boneless rhythms conjured up by the rich ringing West African guitar of Toure...and the loose spiritual blues of Cooder.\"
Titles on disc 1
1.: Blonde
2.: Soukora
3.: Gomni
4.: Sega
5.: Amandrai
6.: Lasidan
7.: Keito
8.: Banga
9.: Ai Du
10.: Diarabi
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