Ali Farka Touré

While the 1990’s finally raised his profile in Europe and America, with successful collaborations and tours with the likes of Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal, Malian Ali Farka Touré was a West African guitar master whose sound felt ancient even in the 1980s. Oft-compared to American bluesman John Lee Hooker, Touré is like him in one way: he was 50 by the time his music finally made its way to a wider audience. A six-year gap spanned his prior album and 1984’s self-titled classic. Touré’s modal Malian blues stylings are serpentine around steady heel-stomping rhythms (in dialogue with the calabash), minimal and mesmerizing. Thankfully reissued on CD as Red & Green in 2004.