It’s almost like some Dylan song, except that Mobile probably ain’t that bad, nor Memphis that great, probably not that much difference really, except that Mobile’s got a little piece of the gulf, which is really nice to break up the monotony of the Deep South until it washes up into your yard. I doubt that Dylan’s ever been east of Highway 61 and south of I-40 anyway, except for the Rolling Thunder Revue back in ’75, doin’ some tunes for us homies, he and McGuinn and Kinky and T-Bone and Allen G. and Joan, like some kind of East Coast Kool-Aid pH test for the rest of us, better late than never. Dylan’s one of my all-time pop heroes, he and Costello and Carabao and Cobain, the best R&R of each of the preceding four decades. The best pop music of this decade has yet to be determined. Einstein, Jesus, and Plato occupy another plateau. Dylan and I share the same birthday, if not exactly the same religion. He said things that may never have been said otherwise. Saharan blues? Yeah, that’s good, too. That’s why I’m going to Mali. There’s probably more good music there per capita than any country in the world, not just the traditional griot style of the sub-Saharan heart of darkness, but a new northern style fostered by the Tuaregs, the ‘blue people’ of the desert. Think deep blue indigo. Think guitars instead of guns. Think music instead of jihad. Talking Timbuktu? Talk Tinariwen.
Tinariwen is the best example of the new ‘Desert Blues’. I first heard them on a sample CD from the WOMEX festival last year in Sevilla, though they’ve played a few WOMAD’s in the last few years, and have been instrumental, pun intended, in making the Festival au Desert outside Timbuktu famous. I knew none of this, though, when I got focused on that 3-song sample CD only a little over a year ago. It immediately became my favorite, best of the ten or so I culled from the stack, as I lightened my load in Rabat. Three months ago they opened for the Rolling Stones in Dublin. It’s nice to be right. A blitzkrieg tour of small venues in the US ensued, maybe the last time you’ll be able to see them like that. I tried to see if we could get them here in Flagstaff, but too little too late. Hard to believe they actually played here for a handful of passersby at NAU a year or two ago. Yup, really. Turns out they’re best friends with the local Navajo band Black Fire, even counting them among their influences on their official website. Berta Benally says they met back at the Festival at Essakane outside Timbuktu, and have been fast friends ever since. That’s a great album from the 2004 festival, including such luminaries as Ali Farka Toure’ and Robert Plant, also. The festival is on the verge of getting too big for its limited infrastructure now, and others have imitated its success. Tinariwen themselves sponsor one at Essouk near Kidal, though their manager tells me it’s not being publicized this year due to violence in the region, and will likely be a very “low-key affair.” There’s an off-chance I might even make it there in time, though hedging my bets. It’s too expensive to make Essakane with the early January holiday rush still in effect. I WILL make it to the Festival at Segou, down south near Bamako. It’ll be more the traditional griot style of Malian music, as opposed to the more free-range Tuareg style.
Ali Farka Toure’ lies somewhere between the two, resting in peace, while his presumably oldest son ‘Vieux’ carries on the musical tradition with his half-Western band. They say that “the blues” can be traced to a single village in Mali, but I doubt it. They say lots of things. If it could, though, Ali Farka’s hometown of Niafunke’ would certainly seem appropriate. Since his electrifying success, much speculation has arisen about whether the blues was imported from Mali to the US or vice-versa, and the argument quickly becomes circular, with turn-of-last-century early blues musicians obviously retaining some African influence only a few generations removed and turn-of-this-century Mali musicians obviously influenced by an avalanche of American music that has swept the globe for a hundred years, not just from the US, mind you, but also the Caribbean exerting strong influence. The question quickly becomes one of definition. “Blues” by definition is an American medium, and consists of several different styles, both rural and urban, and that doesn’t even include jazz, gospel, and soul. Malian music is similarly diverse. To try to find the “blues gene” or get self-righteous about who discovered what in an essentially collaborative medium is a bit feudal and futile, especially considering the dispersive methods of the slave trade and the lack of proper record-keeping. Black people of the African diaspora have much in common to be explored and shared, notwithstanding the significant differences between cultures within the African continent itself. Let the scientists and doctors quibble over the details.
The origins of the new ‘Sahara Blues’ seem a little less mysterious, despite Robert Plant’s description of it as “a drop in a very old bucket.” For one thing, Tuaregs aren’t even black. They didn’t invent the blues, nor do they share much culturally or historically with black Malians, with whom they have frequently struggled. Music is better than all that, and obviously ‘Saharan Blues’ has borrowed much from Ali Farka in addition to Arabic styles from the north. When Ali Farka first heard of the Festival au Desert, he immediately asked to play. The rest is history. Music has been a powerful unifying factor between North and South in Mali, bridging the vast cultural gap between the Saharan north and the sub-Saharan south. Uprisings are frequent in the region and indeed, Tinariwen themselves met and coalesced in one of Muammar Gaddafi’s training camps in the 80’s. Now they carry guitars. Music can heal, both internally and externally. One of Tinariwen’s most competent competitors these days, Etran Finatawa, from the same region but across the border in Niger, is composed not only of Tuaregs but their traditional enemies, the Wodaabe, a picturesque group of non-Muslim Fulani. The Tuareg roots lie with the Semitic north. The Fulani roots lie with the Niger-Congo South. They meet where the Sahel meets the Sahara, where camels and goats meet horses and cattle. Though far from the Islamic heartland in Arabia, this is where the world’s most prominent jihads have occurred, mostly by the Fulani, mediating culture and religion between the Islamic/Semitic north and the tribal/animist south. The fact that their traditional herding lands were being heavily encroached upon was probably a contributing cause. Music is better than all that. It may not be the universal language nor the universal religion, but then again, maybe it is.
