Comprised of mostly solo guitar gems with occasional overdubs and a smattering of guitar duets (with Badian's brother Manfa DiabatĆ© and producer/African music historian Banning Eyre), Mande Guitar is a musical kaleidoscope, imbued with unexpected moments of jaw-dropping virtuosity. While the album's instrumentation is stripped-down, the original plan was even more austere. Eyre had wanted Badian [that nickname translates as "tall father"] to record a strictly solo guitar album. Along the way, some compromises were made, including the addition of percussionist Baye KouyatĆ©, who plays tama (talking drum) and calabash on one track, "Fadento." "Some people like to just listen to one instrument, but others like to hear the ambience of an interaction between players, so I wanted to touch both things and strike a balance," says Badian. "Also, when you play solo, you have to cover everythingāyou have to keep the line, the harmony, and the rhythm, whereas when someone is accompanying you, you're freer to do a lot of things that you can't do if you're playing alone."
Badian DiabatƩ et Goussou KouyatƩ
In Badian's circle of musicians, the cultural norm is that everyone is raised to be an adept multi-instrumentalist. We know that most guitarists can dabble on bass, but in Badian's clique, it's the real dealāthere's no faking it. "I usually perform with two or three additional musicians, and we'd switch instruments from song to song. It's very normal to start with one instrument and then move on to another and to experience the music from these different directions. The musicians I play with can play multiple instruments: guitar, ngoni (a 4-string instrument), tama, etc. If I have a drummer, he can typically play the calabash. I've actually made recordings in Mali where I've played all of these instruments. In concert, I mostly play guitar, but I would also play some ngoni or some tama."
A Rich Musical Tradition
Guitar geeks might tune into Mande Guitar for its fretboard fireworks, but for Badian the album serves a greater purpose. "I wanted to show the world the value of this culture," he says. "There's rock 'n' roll, there's jazz. Everything's out there and people know those things, but they don't know that this rich culture exists."
Boubacar "Badian" DiabateĢ (left) recorded Mande Guitar with his brother, Manfa (right), at Afropop Worldwide's Studio 44 in Brooklyn, New York. In DiabateĢ's circle of musicians, everyone is a multi-instrumentalist and able to switch duties from song to song. "It's very normal to start with one instrument and then move onto another and to experience the music from these different directions," DiabateĢ says.
In Badian's case, his rich musical culture dates back several generations. "I was born in a griot family. In the world of griots, people grow up in an environment where music is a traditional professionāmy mother was a singer. My father was a functionary, an official in the government of Mali. Although he was a griot, he did not play guitar. It's a world where music is 'the thing' and you're surrounded by all of these instruments." His first instrument, when he was very young, was the tama. From there he went to the ngoni, which a lot of Malian guitarists start on. "Ngoni is the principal instrument of griots in Mali, along with voice," says Badian, "The ngoni is also the closest [traditional] instrument to guitar in Africa, so the natural instinct of a guitarist in the tradition is to try to imitate the ngoni. The guitarist improvises with the sound of the ngoni in his ear." Baidan switched to guitar when he was about 10, after hearing the music of Mande guitar great Bouba Sacko.
"The ngoni is also the closest [traditional] instrument to guitar in Africa, so the natural instinct of a guitarist in the tradition is to try to imitate the ngoni."
The origins of Mande Guitar began in 1995, when Eyre went to Africa to study guitar with Djelimady Tounkara for six months. One day, Badian came over to the house and was introduced by Tounkara, who, with a slight mix of (as Eyre put it) "disapproval and awe," described Badian as a "young player who will surpass me one day." Eyre had a Hohner G3T that Badian really wanted, so Eyre proposed giving Badian the guitar in exchange for permission to film him. "I realized he was a unique talent," Eyre says. A deal was struck and Eyre filmed a two-hour session of Badian playing in both solo and duet (with ngoni) contexts, all taking place in a construction site repurposed as a studio.
Boubacar āBadianā DiabatĆ©ās GuitarsĀ
DiabatƩ has a fondness for electrics without headstocks, and this Steinberger SS-2F, which replaced a Hohner G3T, is his current plugged-in mainstay.
- Steinberger SS-2F
- Traveler Guitar
- Seagull 12-string
Badian and Eyre remained friends, and Badian reached out to Eyre when he came to New York with his wife, singer Nene Soumano, in 2010. Numerous times over the years, Badian asked Eyre for help recording an album, and in 2021, when Eyre launched Lion Song Records, his request was fulfilled. Eyre pegged Badian to record Lion Song's debut offering, Mande Guitar.
Remaking Malian Music
Eight of the cuts on Mande Guitar are traditional Malian songs, and the challenge for Badian was in trying to inject his own diverse musical personality into them while keeping true to the tradition. "I went to the Institut National des Arts de Bamako, which is the best music school in Bamako [Mali's capital], and there I learned Western pop music and jazz, pentatonic music, because there's a lot of pentatonic styles in Mali that's branched from the blues," says Badian. You'll hear such blending in "Bayini," the jazzy chromatic phrases in "Miri" and "Korosa," and some repeating short fragments in "Sakonke" played at hyper-speed Ć la Carlos Santana. He and Eric Clapton are Badian's favorite Western guitar heroes.
Dressed for his role as griotāa traditional artist who preserves and shares oral history through music, poetry, or storytellingāBoubacar "Badian" DiabatĆ© cradles his Seagull acoustic 12-string. While he also plays 6-string, DiabatĆ© may be one of the finest 12-string acoustic players on the planet.
You'll also hear some unexpected cross-cultural influences on Mande Guitar. "My favorite track is 'Bayini,' which starts with a Mande feel, then jumps into a Spanish flamenco feel," Badian says. "That's to show that Mande music can be fused with any kind of music, because music is universal. But for this record, I wanted to stick mostly to the Mande folklore. You might hear some of that stuff here or there, and on other projects I would bring in a lot more of those influences. But here I went for traditional Mande guitar."
"I wanted to show the world the value of this culture."
Exemplary Technique
In keeping with the traditional right-hand technique of Malian guitar players, Badian plays using his thumb and index finger. This method can look unusual to uninitiated Westerners watching the guitarist use his index finger to pluck in both directions. But Badian plays with an exemplary version of this technique that is impressive and incendiary. "I'm going up and down like a pick," he explains. "The fingernail becomes like a flatpick, and just with the thumb and forefinger I can play four strings. The thumb plays the tonic of the key, which is very defining to the atmosphere of the piece. The thumb's main role is to keep that in the picture at all times. It's not exactly like playing a bass line. Rather, its main role is to emphasize the tonic. However, there are times when the thumb will also contribute to a melody."
TIDBIT: Producer Banning Eyre originally wanted DiabatƩ to record a solo guitar album, but the guitarist insisted on overdubs and a few duets to add additional colors.
There are a few unusual tunings on Mande Guitar, like FāAāDāGāCāE, but most of the album is in standard tuning, and the album was recorded live with no click track. The only overdubbing was on tracks where Badian accompanied himself.
"The fingernail becomes like a flatpick, and just with the thumb and forefinger I can play four strings. The thumb plays the tonic of the key."
Necessity Is the Mother of Invention
"Right now, I just have two guitars: a 12-string Seagull acoustic and a Steinberger electric," says Badian, whose penchant for headless guitars creates a conundrum of sorts. Double ball strings, as used on the Steinberger and his previous Hohner G3T (which got its neck broken off after being loaned to Badian's brother), are hard to find even in music capitals like New York City and Los Angeles. But where there's a will, there's a way. "Even now, there's no store in Mali where you can buy these kinds of strings. The first thing to do is try to get someone that's going to France to bring you some," explains Badian. "But sometimes I would just make my own double-ball strings. I would cut strings and attach a new ball to them. You take the little ring off another string and wind it very tight."
This Seagull 12-string and Steinberger SS-2F are Badian's only two guitars. Getting strings for the Steinberger is nearly impossible in Mali, so he has them shipped from friends and family in New York or France, or jerry-rigs his own double-ball-end strings.
Badian also sometimes relies on a care package from family for accessories. "I get strings from my brother in New York, and I just use whatever he sends. My preference is medium gauge strings, but I'll work with whatever comes in." His resolve to make any piece of gear work is the antithesis of how GAS-stricken gear nerds roll, and Badian is living proof that tone is, indeed, in the fingers. "When I play a gig, I'll rent an amp, and I'll work with whatever I get. As long as it works, I'll make it sound good."
YouTube It
With transcendent elegance and virtuosity, Boubacar DiabatƩ, on 12-string, and kora player BallakƩ Sissoko team up for a performance at a Parisian festival. Prepare to be blown away by their improvisational genius. It's that simple.
Following a violent civil war and a failed military coup, and under the increasingly oppressive control of the Ansar Dine Islamist regimeāwhich had imposed Sharia law and outlawed music in all forms in Northern Maliāguitarist Garba TourĆ© left his home in DirĆ© (a small town on the Niger River in the North) for the countryās capitol, Bamako, with all of his worldly belongings in a bag and his guitar on his back.
There, TourĆ© met the men that would become his bandmates in Songhoy Bluesāfellow refugees from the North whose lives were similarly upended by the conflict. The group forged a connection performing the traditional music of the Songhoy people for their fellow refugees as a salve and source of comfort, but eventually the band developed its own unique sound: a revved-up fusion of traditional Songhoy melodies and grooves with elements of the Western blues and rock the young men shared a fondness for.
Songhoy Bluesā music provided an ideal space for the four refugees to sing about the atrocities that had ravaged their homeland, and an outlet for cutting songs of resistance. But they also sang of hope for the future of their native Northern Mali and good times to come. In September 2013, the group was discovered playing in a Bamako nightclub by French producer Marc-Antoine Moreau, who, along with Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz fame, helped Songhoy Blues record a debut LP, 2015ās Music In Exile,with Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner and Moreau co-producing under the aegis of the Africa Express cultural collaboration non-profit.
The award-winning documentary They Will Have To Kill Us First tells the bandās harrowing and uplifting origin story in brilliant detail and is well worth a screening. And while the conflict sadly continues to smolder in Northern Mali, a lot has changed for Garba TourĆ© and Songhoy Blues since being plucked from the sweaty clubs of Bamako.
On the steam of Music In Exile, Songhoy Blues became an international sensation, touring the world and playing major festivals like Glastonbury, opening for artists like Alabama Shakes and Julian Casablancas, and releasing a critically-acclaimed 2017 sophomore album, RĆ©sistance, which boasts a track featuring Iggy Pop.
At its core, Songhoy Bluesā ever-evolving take on whatās known as ādesert bluesā is a pure expression of rock ānā rollās exuberance and youthful brashness but channeled through a radically different musical vocabulary than what most Western ears are familiar with. TourĆ©ās virtuosic guitar work is the cornerstone of Songhoy Bluesā unique sound ā¦ and itās also painfully cool. His playing is a blend of stuttering, percussive rhythm work, fluid and undulating melodies that fold over themselves, and searing blasts of Saharan shred that take rock-guitar heroics and twist them up into something altogether unique. While Garba TourĆ© is deeply steeped in the Songhoy guitar tradition that once made fellow Northerner Ali Farka TourĆ© a breakout star, Garbaās style has been tweaked and supercharged by the influence of Western greats like Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. (No relation by the way. TourĆ© is an extremely common surname in West Africa, though Garbaās father, Oumar TourĆ©, played guitar and congas in Ali Farkaās band.)
With their new album, Optimisme, Songhoy Bluesā sound is fully-realizedātempered and focused by years of international touring. Recorded in a whirlwind six days at Brooklynās Strange Weather Studio under the care of prodigious guitarist, producer, and guitar culture gourmand Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Johnny Cash, Iggy Pop, and host/creator of the fabulous Guitar Moves web series) and engineer Daniel Schlett (the War On Drugs, Modest Mouse), Optimisme is Songhoy Bluesā most cohesive and incendiary statement, and a true point of arrival.
The album features the bandās first song written in English: an uplifting anthem of hope titled āWorry,ā which serves as a spot of positivity in a set thatās chiefly concerned with the heaviest realities of war-torn Mali.
Thereās a pathos and sincerity to Optimisme that is generally lacking in Western rock ānā roll these days, and global recognition has done nothing to blunt Songhoy Bluesā dedication to contributing to the resistance through its music. Optimismeās songs discuss gravely serious matters like forced marriage (āGabiā) and the exhausting struggle of the revolution (āBarreā), yet these songs are all still absolutely raucous, groove-laden rave-ups that sound like nothing else. Especially the fuzzed-out barnstormer āBadala.ā
Unmistakably, Optimisme charts territory further beyond the margins of traditional Songhoy guitar music, beyond cheap exotica, and beyond the novelty Western music fans often make of guitar music from faraway landsāpushing a traditional culture into a new era, as Ali Farka TourĆ© once did with his own exploration of blues. At a time when blues-based rock ānā roll has eaten its own tail, Optimisme reimagines guitar rock by way of the very West African cradle from which it first came.
Premier Guitar spoke with Garba TourĆ© and Matt Sweeney by phoneāwith a little translation assistance from the bandās tour manger, Matt Taylor, on some follow-up questions for TourĆ©āto get the inside story of crafting Songhoy Bluesā vibrant new album. Despite the miles and cultural disparities between New York City and Bamako, the bond between these kindred guitarmen is strong, and the mutual respect they share palpable. TourĆ© and Sweeney went deep on the writing and recording process, did a deep dive on TourĆ©ās background and philosophy as a guitarist, spoke about the minimalist gear used to track Optimisme, and discussed why an artist with Sweeneyās remarkable resume has found himself so deeply under the spell of desert blues.
Could you tell me how Songhoy Blues approaches writing songs and if that process changed at all on Optimisme?
Garba TourĆ©: We always write songs together. Usually someone comes in with a subject to sing about or Iāll come in with a guitar riff, but anyone in the band can propose an idea to start with. Once we get it as a band, everyoneās input is heard and we all add our ideas. Our songs can come from many places and any instrument, but we build them together all the time. For this album, after we wrote the songs and did demos, we listened to them with Matt [Sweeney], and he helped us to build each track and make the songs sound their best.
Matt Sweeney: West African musicians donāt have the obsession with listening to albums like Westerners do. Music is this living, breathing thing in Tuareg and Songhoy cultures. There isnāt this primacy with the album as an art form, so whatās cool about working with Songhoy Blues is that while these guys are usually really about music in-the-moment, on this record they were very aware they were making an album, and that can be a bigger thing than just capturing songs.
TIDBIT: In a true cross-cultural collaboration, the new Songhoy Blues album was recorded in Brooklyn with a production team that made its bones in alt-rock, but Optimisme is rooted firmly in Maliās Songhoy traditionāand juiced by fuzztone guitar.
Bamako is a place where people like to party and it has a sophisticated nightlife, so these guys are really cool and they know what itās like to go out and drink beer in a room with music and action. The overarching concept that tied this record together was that we all wanted it to feel like Songhoy Blues taking us out for a night in Bamako, with each song being like walking into a different club or alleyway. I wanted it to feel sweaty, live, and exciting. And a little dangerous. They were totally with that idea. So with that concept in mind, we were able to start thinking of it as an album, rather than just a few songs being tracked, and the performances were definitely better for it. We had a conversation about increasing all the tempos and focused a lot on how we could make each song super-exciting and make this record feel super hyped-up. They had such great ideas to that end.
How did you track to get that hyped-up feel?
Sweeney: Live, for the most part. I literally got off a plane and went straight to the studio on day one, and the guys had been working all day. The one thing that they had put down was āBadala,ā which really blew my mind and set the tone for the record. The guys would show me the song, Iād make suggestions, and weād take things apart and put them back together as a team.
Weād usually take like an hour to rearrange a song and then cut it live with a scratch vocal, then we went back to add real lead vocals, group vocals, and we did a day or two of small overdubs and Garba shredding. They work really well together and are super-efficient. We were working really hard and only had six days, but we never got hung up on anything. For example āWorryā came in as this kind of lope-y thing that had like a reggae feel. And that one was like, āOkay! Great lyrics and melody, but what can we do to better support them?ā Garba came up with that guitar riff literally on the spot, and I went āWhat the fuck?! Thatās insane!ā and then we had it.
We really had a lot of fun turning these songs inside out in a very spontaneous way, but then recording them quickly to capture that spark. The same kind of thing played out on āPour Toi,ā with that big tempo change in the middle. We worked out how to maximize the songās energy as a team. There was some thought put into how these songs would feel to play live, and āPour Toiā is a good example of the live consideration changing a songās vibe for the better, with that big scene/tempo change.
TourĆ©: When we built āPour Toi,ā it started with that first part and we decided it needed a second part with much more energy. We built that bridge/second part with Matt, and had two parts to choose from for the second half, and we went for the higher energy one. Recording in a great studio like Strange Weather was such a good experience for us. Daniel Schlett was very good to work with, and a great sound engineer, and really knew how to get the sounds we wanted. Matt was really the maestro. He was there early every morning to really help us create a great album.
Vieux Farka TourƩ capos his Godin Summit CT and hits a joyous
chord during a gig in Sydney, Australia. Photo by Daniel Boud
Understanding a genreās lineage helps you connect dots over time to understand how music interconnects and evolves. Nothing illustrates this better than the blues, whose evolution can be traced through many different generations and geographic regions. You can see the progression from America, beginning with the earthy Delta style of players such as Charley Patton and Robert Johnson, and then Muddy Waters helped morph it into a gritty, urban blues, and before long the genre had hopped over the Atlantic to the UK and led to the high-energy solos of Eric Clapton and the dirty swagger of the Rolling Stones. The cycle will keep going in perpetuityāespecially with the ease of global information transfer that technology affords todayāand all of it will continue to inform modern blues and blues-rock. The Secret, the latest release from Malian guitarist Vieux Farka TourĆ©, is a great example of this.
Although we all know the blues blossomed as a cathartic American art form fed by the blood-and-sweat-soaked soil of slavery, poverty, and prejudice, if you go back before Johnsonās supposed meeting at the crossroads and Pattonās siring of the Delta blues, you logically end up in Africaāthe homeland of the mothers, fathers, and grandparents of the genreās founders. And naturally, the cycle of musical evolution goes back in time to the dawn of humankind.
As Darwin found on the GalĆ”pagos Islands, though, the same species will evolve differently under contrasting conditions. And for players interested in how this phenomenon has played out musically in modern times, Vieux Farka TourĆ©ās father, the late Ali Farka TourĆ©, has proven a fascinating and enjoyable study. Aliās first appearance on the world music scene came with his 1976 album Ali TourĆ© Farka, and soon after his reputation as an āAfrican John Lee Hookerā spread throughout the continent. Prior to succumbing to bone cancer in 2006, Aliās influence had spread into the mainstream due to his collaborations with slide wizard Ry Cooder, Taj Mahal, and Corey Harris.
TourƩ onstage with percussionist Souleymane Kane (left) and
drummer Tim Keiper (middle). Photo by Daniel Boud
Considering how accomplished and influential his father was, it comes as no surprise that Vieux has a compelling musical story as well. Combining an extremely intricate sense of rhythm with a percussive open-string attack, Vieux stepped out of his fatherās shadow with his self-titled 2007 debut. He built upon the boogie style Ali was known for and added his own Hendrix-ian influences to create a unique style with blueslike tones and repetitive song forms that stayed true to his folksy Malian roots. The album featured a guest spot from his father, and Toumani DiabatĆ©ā who plays kora [a 21-string African instrument thatās like a cross between a lute and a sitar] who was an important early influence and mentor to the younger TourĆ©āalso appeared on the album. Buzz started to build after the release of Vieuxās second studio album, Fondo, and his energetic and infectious live shows won him fans all over the world, as well as an invitation to play the opening ceremonies of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. The worldwide viewership of this appearance was reported to have been close to a billion people. Not bad for a bluesman from the desert.
With The Secret, TourĆ© wanted to create an album that captured his unique brand of African boogie without pushing it too far into the mainstream. He brought on Soulive guitarist Eric Krasno to produce the album, and invited A-list guitarists such as Dave Matthews, John Scofield, and Derek Trucks to participate. āThe original idea was to have a bunch of guests on the album,ā says Krasno. āThe more we listened, we decided we really didnāt want to pull him out of his zone. We wanted him to do his music.ā Seconds into the opening track, āSokosondou,ā you hear what Krasno is talking about: Despite the famous cameos, this album definitely doesnāt sound like it was put together by a marketing genius trying to pull a āSmoothā-style Santana move. This is Vieuxās music, done his way.
The majority of this album was recorded in Mali. What were those sessions like?
Tiring [laughs]. We did a lot of work in a very short amount of time for those sessions. I wanted everything to be in place before I left for New York to finish the album. It was a lot of fun, but it felt like a huge amount of hard work. The sessions had a very smooth and natural feel, which made the hard work inspiring.
Was this material written specifically for this project or were these songs written over a long period of time?
Both. I had been working on this project since I recorded my first album [Vieux Farka TourƩ] in 2005. I have always had this type of album in mind as I was writing and collecting material.
Do you usually begin with a guitar riff or a melody when composing?
I begin usually with a guitar riff. Sometimes there will be a melody in my head that comes out of nowhere and Iāll start writing down a whole song before I touch a guitar. It really never happens the same way twice.
āI wanted this album to push guitar music forward and challenge other
guitarists to come into my world,ā says TourĆ©. Photo by Phil Onofrio
Had you ever worked with Eric Krasno before this?
No, but we knew each other. It felt like a perfect fit from the beginning.
Was it a conscious decision to have a guitarist produce the album?
Yes. I wanted this album to push guitar music forward and challenge some other guitarists to come into my world.
Speaking of other guitarists, you have a few guests joining you. How did you decide on whom to invite?
My manager put a list of possible guest guitarists together that I approved. Then Krasno invited them and they said yes right awayāit was that simple. What an honor it was to play with these great musicians. I have enormous respect for John [Scofield]. Though we only played together for a short time, he showed me a kind of patience on the guitar that I really appreciate and I will carry with me from now on.
What did Dave Matthews bring to āAll the Sameā?
He brought his own soul to the song. He understood what I was expressing in it and he developed that idea into something that larger audiences can understand and appreciate. He is a huge talent and I am so thankful that he has blessed this song.
You have a great fuzzy tone on āBorei.ā How did you record that in the studio?
I played around with the Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus and my Boss SD-1 [Super OverDrive] until I got just the right sound. I think they made it a bit brighter when they mixed the album.
TourƩ employs his unique two-finger picking style on his Godin Summit CT.
Note the plastic fingerpick worn on his index finger. Photo by Derek Beres
What gear did you use for the sessions?
For the sessions in Mali, I used my Godin Summit CT through the JC-120. Other than the SD-1, the only other effect I used was a Boss CH-1 [Super Chorus]. During the New York sessions, the studio had a great Mexican-made Strat that had Seymour Duncan Antiquity pickups. I plugged that into a vintage ā68 Fender Super Reverb.
What was the biggest surprise during the sessions?
I think hearing Dave Matthewsā verse was the most surprising. I knew he was a big star and would do something nice on the song, but I had no idea he would capture the spirit of the song and launch it into the stars the way he did. I was blown away.
How does improvisation factor into your performances?
My style is based in improvisation. New songs usually come to me as I improvise. Live, the songs never sound the same as they did the last time. Itās about creating a base for soloing and improvising, so for me itās very important to allow space for things to change and for new things to come into the music. For example, āLakkal (Watch Out)ā was completely improvised in the studio with Krasno, Tim Keiper, and Eric Hermanāmy manager and occasional bass player. We just sat down and started jamming on some ideas, and before we knew it we had this new song. On the album, that song is right next to others that took years to evolve.
TourĆ© onstage with Mamadou Sidibe, whoās laying down a groove
with his Samick Corsair 4-string. Photo by Daniel Boud
You have a deep connection to blues music. Do you remember when you first became interested in it?
I canāt say, since I feel like it was before I can remember. I grew up listening to my fatherās music, so itās in my blood and my soul. I donāt consider it an interest as much as an expression of who I am in my soul.
Did any other Western artists significantly influence you?
Yes, Phil Collins and Bryan Adams. They write beautiful melodies. I have always appreciated that since I was a child.
As a musician, what were your early years in Mali like?
I started playing guitar when I was 20 at the Arts Institute in Bamako [capital of Mali]. During that time, I kept my playing a secret and basically taught myself. I was afraid to let people know that I was doing it. As the son of the best guitarist in the history of Mali, I needed to be careful. Eventually, people started finding out and I began to play in Toumani DiabatĆ©ās band. Toumani was my mentor and turned me into a professional.
TourƩ usually plugs his go-to Godin into a Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus. Photo by Derek Beres
Your right-hand technique is unique. Is that something that developed naturally or did someone teach you that?
It developed naturally. Itās simply the guitar style from the north of Mali. I use only two fingersāand really all that people usually hear is one finger, the one that is doing the soloing.
Did you have any other formal musical training?
I had played percussion since I was a child. Growing up in NiafunkĆ© [in north-central Mali], I played behind both my father and Afel Bocoum. But I had no training on guitar until I joined Toumaniās band.
The title track of this album is a duet between you and your father. What was it like growing up as the son of a legendary guitarist?
Growing up, I didnāt know he was a legend or even a big star until I traveled with him to Paris. I was 10 or 11 years old and it was amazing to see the huge crowd revering him. I always knew that I was very fortunate to have him as a father. He was everything to me. He still is.
How did his music influence you?
I donāt consider it an influence. It is a base. You donāt think how the meat influences a hamburger, or how the broth influences the soupāthat is the base, and then other things can come on top and influence it.
TourƩ plucks away on a Mexican-made Strat while in the studio. Photo by Trevor Traynor
Vieux Farka TourƩ's Gearbox
Guitars
Godin Summit CT, ā90s Mexican-made Fender Stratocaster, Taylor GS8
Amps
Roland JC-120, 1968 Fender Super Reverb
Effects
Boss CH-1 Super Chorus, Boss SD-1 Super OverDrive
Strings
DāAddario .010ā.047 sets
Secret Sessions
Producer/guitarist Eric Krasno and jazz legend John Scofield let us in on The Secret.
Choosing the right producer for a project can be tough. You want someone who understands your musical vision but pushes you somewhere you canāt get to on your own. For The Secret, Vieux Farka TourĆ© chose Soulive guitarist Eric Krasno. Though they hadnāt previously worked together, the connection was there from the outset. āI was a fan of his father, for sure,ā says Krasno, āI heard about [Vieux] through his manager, Eric Herman, who is also a bass player and musician.ā
Eric Krasno lays down the funk at a Soulive gig with his Gibson
ES-335 plugged into a Mesa/Boogie Lonestar combo.
Because Vieux is based in Mali, most of the preproduction was finished before the two met at a Brooklyn recording studio. Krasno and TourĆ© traded digital files back and forth to get a better idea of the direction they wanted to take. āI would say that 70 percent of the demos were done in Mali. We would send them back and forth, and I would listen and give my feedback.ā
The title track is a duet between Vieux and his father, Ali Farka TourĆ©. Krasno was careful not to embellish the original track too much. āWe were going to revamp it and add some different instrumentation. In the end, we decided to add a little percussion, but for the most part we left it how it was and just mixed it.ā Although many of the demos were tracked before the sessions in Brooklyn, that didnāt prevent them from trying to capture some in-the-moment magic. āThere were a few tracks that we just recorded fresh in the studioāincluding āLakkal (Watch Out),ā which I played on. That was pretty much one take in the studio, and turned it into a song. We used a few different ways to get from A to Z on this record.ā
Because Krasno and Vieux are no strangers to improvisation, getting the right performance was more a matter of getting the right vibe than a note-perfect take. āVieuxās approach to recording was all about ācatch the magic.ā He would rather spend the time cleaning it up and adding overdubs than recording more takes, if he feels like the magic is there,ā says Krasno.
Bona fide jazz-guitar legend John Scofieldāwho joined Vieux on āGidoāācame to the project through Krasno. Sco wasnāt familiar with the younger TourĆ©, but he was already interested in music from the region. āI have been aware of North African music and its similarity to blues. I read some treatises from academic guys saying that a lot of blues sounds come from Mali. When I heard his father, I just loved it,ā says Scofield. When he arrived at the session, the track was mostly complete. āIt was very natural for me. On my solo, I used a 1974 Gibson ES-335 with a Bigsby going into a DigiTech Whammy pedal and a Bad Cat amp. I did a faux-Eastern sort of thing that is very much related to my blues approach to guitar. It felt right just to play. In other words, I didnāt even have to know the tune. The music felt very much at home for me.ā
Krasno says he wanted to push Vieux to go out of his comfort zone when it came to gear so that the tones would be different than on previous albums. āI had him use a Jerry Jones sitar on some stuff. You can hear that in there,ā mentions Krasno. āIt sounds like a guitar with a weird phaser pedal. We also used a cranked 1968 Fender Super Reverb for some of the more distorted sounds you hear. He really likes using a chorus pedal, too, so I was trying to pull him away from it. We recorded at this place called The Bunker Studios, and John Davis, the engineer, had a lot of tricked-out weird stuff. I would say the primary gear was a ā90s Fender Strat through the Super.ā
Throughout the sessions, Krasno got an up-close view of TourĆ©ās style and even picked up a few things. āEvery time I work with a new person, I take a little piece of that with me,ā he says. āHis rhythm and how he hears it is just amazing. On some of the tracks, he would count them off and I would hear them in a totally different place. His innate feel is just in a different place from where I am atābut at the end of the sessions, I knew where that was.ā
