Ronnie Scott’s 10th -11th July 2012 / £24 – £45 / Doors 6pm / www.ronniescotts.co.uk / 020 7439 0747
Only his voice can blend Niger and Mississippi river alluvia with such moving authenticity. His unique, inimitable, self-taught guitar technique owes a great deal to his kora influences, but its shades and phrasing also suggest the great black bluesmen of the deep American South: Blind Willie McTell, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and others.
Begin at the end, so they say, and the end for Lobi came suddenly and out of the blue. He died in June at 49. Like Habib Koite is, Lobi was a people’s musician. Friendly and down to earth, Lobi was well known to hustlers and music fans alike in clubs like the Djembe in Bamako. A short time before his death, he grabbed half an opportunity to record an album and here it is
“The late, great Charlie Gillett had a passion for music”, Mark Coles, BBC World Service, June 2010.
Continue reading V/A – Sound of the World Presents: Anywhere On This Road
Charlie GIllett scoops up yet again the tracks you loved but never got round to owning and those that would otherwise have entirely slipped past you unnoticed like so many logs floating down the Niger in the middle of the night
Continue reading V/A – Sound of the World Presents: Otro Mundo (Another World)
Network records have kept up the profoundly high level of quality control exhibited on the first two instalments of this exquisite series
A few years ago a group of hoteliers got together in the pleasant but unremarkable stopover of Segou along the banks of the Niger river to work out how to get people to stay for a while in their town. Thus the Festival sur le Niger was born and this year it burst its banks
Continue reading Festival sur le Niger – Dancing through the Tears
With a fresh take on his father’s trademark sound, Vieux is almost guaranteed to attract international audiences — even if only a handful of his compatriots have heard him play. We went to the Sahara to talk to him
“When they hear the drums they come running… when they saw the Bozo in the boat and the beautiful fish in the water, a great howl escaped from the thousand people on the beach. It was chilling.”
Continue reading Meet ‘Ngofariman’ the Nasty Chimpanzee among Mali’s Puppets and Masks
From the first few, sharply beautiful notes of this exquisite pairing, it is already clear that this album will be one of the key records of the year. Ali Farka Touré’s guitar and Toumani Diabaté’s Kora emit a phenomenal series of notes that interlock with each other like two intricate cogs in some otherworldly machine.
Continue reading Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate – In the Heart of the Moon
