[News] Memories of Ali Farka Touré

[Anti-Imperialist News]

March 13, 2006


"You Have Left Home to Come Home"


Memories of Ali Farka Touré

By COREY HARRIS

I first heard Ali Farka Touré perform at the New 
Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1994. At 
that time many North American audiences were 
beginning to learn about the man and his music, 
often through Ry Cooder, one of his early 
American collaborators. I remember crowds 
flocking to hear their set, the fans talking 
about some African guy who plays with Ry Cooder. 
Seeing the two perform onstage together, it was 
immediately obvious who was the teacher and who 
was the student. Cooder, thrilled to play with 
Ali Farka, backed him up dutifully, supporting 
each song with carefully placed licks and riffs 
tossed from his slide guitar like small bombs. In 
his long boubou, Ali Farka carried himself like 
the royalty that he was, striking to behold yet 
immensely approachable. With his easy smile and 
humble, gracious manner, he was at home in the world.

After his performance, he attended a question and 
answer session. American audiences had heard of 
this African bluesman and repeatedly asked him 
questions about his encounters with blues music 
and how he began to play. His responses often 
surprised, like when he answered that blues meant 
nothing to him, since it is only a color. Even 
though he was continually typecast as the Malian 
bluesman who learned guitar listening to John Lee 
Hooker, this was far from the truth. In fact, Ali 
Farka's music sounded like blues because it came 
way before the blues, spirituals, slavery, and 
the European conquest of the Americas. He 
embodied the deep roots of centuries of African 
music; many couldn't see the tree for the leaves, 
fixated as they were on the record company's 
marketing of him as the African John Lee Hooker. 
When asked about his main profession, he would 
simply say that he was a farmer. To him, music 
seemed to be something one did anyway, in 
addition to living one's life and going to work. 
Many recognized him as a great musician, but it 
was not his music that made him great, but rather 
his commitment to others, his town, his country, 
and his roots which made him great. Even his 
middle name, Farka, evokes the donkey that 
carries everyone's burdens on his back. Ali was 
always ready to help his fellow man, or to make a 
stranger feel welcome in his desert home. This 
star did not shine in some far away galaxy, but 
right here among us, as one of us.

In 2001 we met again in his hometown of Niafunke, 
near Timbuktu in Northern Mali. This time I 
traveled with a film crew dispatched by director 
Martin Scorcese (who did not travel to Mali). We 
played music together under trees on a hot 
afternoon on the banks of the Niger. During our 
five days together I observed a man who was 
regarded as a king at home, but who moved about 
with humility, dignity, and respect for all, 
nobly born or not. A descendant of ancient 
Tukulor rulers of Northern Mali (originating in 
Morocco), Ali had a firm grasp of history from 
ancient days through the present, being able to 
recount his family's origins in Fez centuries 
ago. He also loved Black American music. When I 
flew into Niafunke in August 2001, he picked me 
up in his Land Rover, blasting the music of Otis 
Redding, Ray Charles and Bobby Blue Bland as we 
bounced through the dusty streets of Niafunke, 
past goats, chickens and donkeys. He often told 
me, 'Vous avez quitter chez toi pour arriver chez 
toia!' (you have left home to come home). He 
believed that even though our cultures were 
separated by hundreds of years of slavery, and 
many had lost their language, culture, and 
religion, Black Americans still maintained the 
African spirit in the music that had sustained 
them through slavery to the present day. 'There 
is no difference--we are from the same mothera?' 
he would say. 'There are no Black Americans, but 
there are Blacks in America.' He recounted his 
impression the first time he heard the music of 
John Lee Hooker: 'This is something that belongs 
to us--how did they come about this culture?a?' 
He says he was surprised that African American 
music could sound so familiar, yet it had been so 
long since slavery had taken them away. The blues 
meant that African culture had survived even 
slavery, emerging like sweet fruit from long-dormant transplanted seeds.

In Niafunke, children flocked around him, locals 
looked to him for leadership, advice, employment 
and financial support. Indeed, while African 
music fans the world over hungered for his live 
shows, Ali Touréd infrequently, having been 
elected mayor of his hometown of Niafunke in 
2004. He committed himself to community and 
commercial development, and even played shows in 
France to fund initiatives to develop the town. A 
reasonably well-off man, he nonetheless spoke of 
poverty ('pauvrete') as being the true path to 
happiness, meaning that one should not waste 
energy on material wants, but live simply. It is 
alright to have means, but use them wisely and 
help others. He exemplified this philosophy with 
his life. His music reflected this brilliantly. I 
still have film footage of Ali walking the 
grounds of his hotel with a bird gun, taking 
shots at the pigeons perched on the roof as we 
ate breakfast in the courtyard of his small 
hotel, Hotel Campement. I can still taste the 
desert dust in the air, dry from the seasonal 
Harmattan winds which sweep down from the Sahara 
across the whole of West Africa.

I returned to Niafunke in 2002 to record an album 
called Mississippi to Mali (Rounder). We set up 
our portable recording equipment inside one of 
his houses on the banks of the river. Since 
electricity was available only between 5pm and 
midnight, we chose to record between 5pm and 7pm, 
five nights in a row. I will never forget the 
changing hues of the desert sunset, the distant 
cries of birds flying across the Niger, the 
sounds of children playing, amid the backdrop of 
cows, goats and donkeys roaming the dusty roads 
of Niafunke. Listening to the recording, one can 
hear all of these sounds. They blend together 
seamlessly with the music as if it were one big 
orchestra where everyone had their part to play. 
I learned that you can't isolate the music from 
everyday life. In fact, it is this same everyday 
life that gives us something to sing and play about. Life makes the music.

A devout and spiritual adherent of Islam, I 
remember Ali Farka kneeling to pray towards Mecca 
as the day ended and his vast herd of cattle 
marched in under the gaze of the red desert 
sunset. When we weren't recording, we took our 
meals at the hotel, watching Malian TV in the 
courtyard under the desert stars. Another night 
we ate at his house. His wife prepared porcupine, 
riz caisse (broken rice) with red sauce and 
vegetables. For dessert we ate the freshest 
homemade yogurt that I have ever tasted. Ali 
talked about his youth and the resistance he 
faced when he began to take an interest in music. 
As a noble, it was deemed unbecoming for him to 
take up musical instruments, usually the domain 
of griots who accompanied nobles such as Ali and 
his family. For some time, his family became 
convinced that Ali was mentally unstable or 
possessed by demons. He endured traditional 
medicines and being bound by healers for a full 
year, all in an effort to make him stop wanting 
to play music. Eventually his elders saw that he 
would not stop his pursuit of music and they 
relented. The spirits were in him and they had to come out.

When I last saw Ali Farka Touré, I was touring 
Southern France with my six year old son and 
heard from a friend that he was nearby. Early the 
next morning, we all piled into a little Peugot 
and drove the hour and a half to a small 
medieval-era town to greet him. Soon after we 
arrived, Ali came through the door, all height 
and majesty, accompanied by a film crew and 
representatives from his record company. I 
noticed immediately that he looked thinner, even 
slightly gaunt. His dark skin looked ashen, grey, 
despite the ever-present warmth in his smile and 
his easy laughter. He told us that he had just 
emerged from a dire illness and had come very 
close to death. He even laughed as he recounted 
his battle, knowing that he had cheated death. A 
natural with children, Ali and my son Isaac hit 
it off immediately, playing, wrestling, and 
laughing, despite the language barrier between 
them. Soon Ali and I were outside, talking about 
our work together, and his plans for Niafunke. I 
showed him the stone pendant made by Mali's 
Tomashek people that was given to me as a gift 
during one of my visits to Mali. Ali examined it 
and told me to keep it; the marks on the pendant 
gave me protection from harm. I still wear the stone today--.

Before we parted company, Ali invited me and my 
son to visit him in Mali. He kept telling me to 
leave Isaac with him and he would teach him all 
that he needed to know. Sadly, this was not to 
be. I was in Portugal nearly one year later, 
sharing the stage with a traditional, electric 
group from Mali, the Symmetric Orchestra. From 
them I learned of the precarious state of Ali's 
health. A little while later I was in Conakry, 
Guinea, right next door to Mali. I knew Ali 
didn't have long, but I lacked the funds to 
travel the long distance overland to see him. I 
later learned that he had already stopped 
receiving visitors and had traveled to the Dogon 
country to consult traditional healers to kill 
the cancer inside him. Renowned for their 
discovery of Sirius (the Dog Star) long before 
western astronomy, the Dogon held onto their 
ancient, magical ways and were one of the few 
groups to resist the conversion to Islam. When I 
heard the news, I wasn't shocked by his passing, 
but I felt his absence immediately. A master is 
gone. Let us remember the lessons he taught us by 
keeping his music and wisdom close to our hearts. 
Ali Farka Touré's example reminds us all that 
showed his greatness was much more than the 
virtuosity of his music. He was a king. His crown 
was his humanity. May his soul rest in peace.

Corey Harris's most recent cd's are 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DJZA1/counterpunchmaga>Mississippi 
to Mali and 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0009GV1WQ/counterpunchmaga>Daily 
Bread. He can be reached through his website.


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