The desert blues master Ali Farka Touré advised his son Vieux to become a soldier so he wouldn’t have to face the horrors of the music biz.
We should be grateful the gifted young musician rejected his dad’s advice.
On Wednesday at Komedia Vieux Farka Touré played one of the most blinding African music gigs I’ve ever seen.
Yes, his style has the subtle beauty of his dad, but when the occasion demands he can switch on the kick-ass power of a rocker.
His performance began low-key, that said. Farka Touré seemed almost a shy presence on stage, letting his electric guitar do the talking.
It talked eloquently. With just bass and drums to back him, he wove endlessly inventive patterns of hypnotic melody with a virtuosity that defied belief.
But as the set progressed, so the levels of excitement rose. With the quiet man now throwing himself across the stage in mock jousts with his bassist, the room began to move.
Things quietened down for a beautiful song that echoed Hendrix’s Little Wing, after which the brakes came off.
He had us singing our hearts out in Malian and brought the show to a climax with a Latin-inflected stomper that was lifted to extraordinary heights by the athletic playing of his drummer.
It was a shot of adrenalin that jolted us out of our February feebleness but for all that, there wasn’t a note of this music that could have come from anywhere but Mali.
Farka Touré is growing a tradition, but it is as safe in his hands as we were in his.
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