Ali Farka Toure was born Ali Ibrahim Toure in 1939 in the Timbuktu region in Mali, Africa. He was the 10th child born to his mother and the first one to live - thus nicknamed Farka (donkey) because he was 'stubborn enough to survive'.
He started out on music already as an 11-years-old, teaching himself to play the gurkel (little African single-string-guitar) and the njarka (single-string-fiddle). He picked up the Western guitar at age 17 when he saw a performance by the Guinean guitarist Ketita Fodeba. The instrument touched him so deeply that he decided to become a guitarist. Once again teaching himself, Ali played traditional songs using the techniques he had learned on the gurkel.

In the late 60's Ali Farka Toure got in touch with the music of African-American bluesmen, most importantly John Lee Hooker. He first thought Hooker would play Malian music, so close was the relationship between the blues and the traditional African roots from which it came. Without copying Hooker, Ali Farka Toure 'responded' to the American blues with a pure African voice, thus creating his unique, mesmerizing and hypnotic style.

His recording career began in France 1976 - he sent his tapes there and never saw the money for it. He then concentrated on the Malian radio, trained as a sound engineer and worked in this profession until 1980 when he could afford to buy a fruit and rice farm near his hometown Niafunke, a 6000-souls-village in the semi-desert of Mali.

Ali Farka Toure never had had any ambitions to become a 'star', in spite of touring widely in Africa. His musical inspiration has always come from his life on the banks of the Niger river, at the edge of the Sahara desert, and this is where he still thinks his music belongs. It is not just entertainment to him, it is the communication with the spirits surrounding him.

This explains why he backed out from what could have been a blues superstar career after his 1994 album 'Talking Timbuktu', a collaboration with Ry Cooder. The album won a grammy in 1995 and Ali went on world tour, but he was quickly desillusioned by the 'chew-and-spit' cycle of Western audiences. He longed for home and gave up the tour, with no cares that he turned down the potential for more stardom, not to mention dollars.

After a break of almost five years, his next album - 'Niafunke' - was made possible only by an enthuasiastic producer who packed up a mobile studio and drove the whole lumber into Ali's hometown Niafunke. In spite of most provisional technics 'Niafunke' became what many call Ali's best album. Where 'Talking Timbuktu' was polished and acommodable, 'Niafunke' was down to the earth and back to the roots, with all the spirits of the Malian magic in full power.

Ali Farka Toure toured a bit, saw that there wasn't so much change in the world, told everybody that this would be his last tour and disappeared again to care for his crops and lifestock.

He leaves us his albums, each of them a must-have, a treasure of pure blues proving that the spirit is still alive.

We can just hope that there will be another truckload of recording equipment on its way to the banks of the Niger river soon - and that maybe the crops and livestock can do without Ali for a few touring months or so..

Not that we wouldn't understand him, though..