After winning a Grammy, Ali Farka Touré went home to farm rice in Niafunké, a small town on the Niger River near Timbuktu. When his label wanted another album, they had to bring the studio to him.
Touré, one of the greatest guitarists Africa has produced, won the Grammy for Best World Music Album for Talking Timbuktu, his 1994 collaboration with the American guitarist Ry Cooder. The album introduced millions of listeners to a sound that critics called “desert blues”, and it made Touré a global name.
The sound of the Niger
Touré was born in 1939 in the region of Timbuktu, in what was then French Sudan, now Mali. He taught himself to play traditional instruments, including the one-stringed njarka fiddle and the ngoni lute, before switching to the guitar. He sang in several languages of northern Mali, including Songhai, Fulfulde and Tamasheq.
Western listeners heard his music as blues, and the similarities with American blues were striking: repeated guitar patterns, a hypnotic groove and a voice full of feeling. Touré himself often said that the blues had its roots in Africa, and that what Americans called blues he recognised as music from home.
Talking Timbuktu
Cooder, known for his slide guitar and his work with musicians from around the world, recorded with Touré in Los Angeles. The result, released on the London label World Circuit in 1994, balanced the two guitarists’ styles. The album’s success brought Touré to concert halls and festivals worldwide.
Back to the farm
Touré was not interested in a touring life. He preferred to stay in Niafunké, where he farmed and served his community, becoming mayor of the town. World Circuit’s producer, Nick Gold, decided the only way to record him again was to go there. A mobile studio was set up in an abandoned agricultural school, and the album Niafunké was released in 1999.
Later years and death
Touré recorded a celebrated duo album, In the Heart of the Moon, with the kora player Toumani Diabaté, which won a Grammy in 2006. He was already ill with bone cancer, and he died on 7 March 2006.
The legacy
His son, Vieux Farka Touré, carries on his music as a guitarist and singer. Groups from northern Mali, including Tinariwen, built international careers on the “desert blues” path he helped open. Niafunké became a place of pilgrimage for fans.
Toumani Diabaté
His partner on In the Heart of the Moon, the kora master Toumani Diabaté, came from a long line of griot musicians and was himself one of the great figures of Malian music. The meeting of Touré’s guitar and Diabaté’s 21-string harp became one of the most admired collaborations in African music. Diabaté died in Bamako in July 2024, and tributes around the world recalled the records the two men made together.
He could have spent his last years on world tours. He spent them growing rice by the Niger, and made the music industry come to him.
