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
Talking Timbuktu is a groundbreaking record that vividly illustrates the Africa-Blues ... more
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...
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Talking Timbuktuis a groundbreaking record that vividly illustrates the Africa-Blues ... more
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, be...
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...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 ... more
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 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 of us already knew and named it the Best World Music Album of the year (the second in a row for the multi-talented Cooder, incidentally).
Product Information for "Talking Timbuktu - Ali Farka Toure" »
Product details
Title
Talking Timbuktu
Performer
Ali Farka Toure
Genre
World Music
Sub Genre
Mali
Release Date
03/1994
Recomended Retail Price
16.99 GBP
Original Release Year
1994
Label / Distributor
World Circuit / Proper
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). Recorded at Ocean Way Recording Studios, Los Angeles, California in September, 1993. Includes liner notes by Nick Gold. TALKING TIMBUKTU won the 1995 Grammy Award for Best World Music Album. By the time your average listeners get around to the slow, elemental backbeat of "Ai Du," all of their preconceptions about chickens and eggs, roots and fruits or bluesmen and griots have been blurred and obscured by the enchanting music that makes up TALKING TIMBUKTU. It's all in there: the droning traditional timbres of Mali in Ali Farka Toure's guitar; the deep, mysterious incantations of the Mississippi delta blues in Ry Cooder's slide work; the soulful backwoods moan of "Gatemouth" Brown's viola; the percolating rhythms of Hamma Sankare and Oumar Toure; and the earthy resonant dance of drummer Jim Keltner and bassist John Patitucci. "Ai Du" sums out to something not unlike the blues or West African music...but it's something else again--like some pan-ethnic folk music for the 21st century. That's because TALKING TIMBUKTU is an epic cross-cultural super-session that captures the deepest spirit of music and transports it across ethnic and stylistic boundaries without demeaning the gift-giver or the gift. Ali Farka Toure's blissful melodic lines do not adhere to traditional blues form, but rather suggest a kind of pre-blues music of African origins. On a tune such as "Soukora" Toure pours out his heart to his lover, as he and Cooder playfully circle each other with bell-like chords and ornaments that sound like a curtain of electric pearls, while Toure's more vivid attack on "Amandral" echoes phrases evocative of John Lee Hooker. In truth, TALKING TIMBUKTU resists easy description. It is exquisite, mysterious music.
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." Village Voice (2/28/95) - Ranked #40 in the Village Voice's 1994 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll. Musician (6/94, p.86) - "...Toure's home village of Niafunke nestles between the Sahara and the Niger River, his farm plots carefully cultivated in a precarious symmetry between two inexorable forces. It's fitting that TALKING TIMBUKTU achieves its own quiet balance among several roots and branches of the blues...." Stereo Review (5/94, p.91) - "...a very different tapestry of cross-cultural musical threads that co-exist happily and beautifully..." Uncut (2/03, p.78) - "...The spirit of spontaneity only serves to emphasize the deep understanding between the two guitarists and the connections between American blues and its African roots..."
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
Ciao
Listed on Ciao since
17/02/2003
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