Seeing a performance by the National Ballet of Guinea in 1956 gave Ali his first encounter with the western acoustic guitar, and the conviction that he must master this instrument himself. With no teacher, he created a revolutionary new way of playing.
He developed a taste for a range of imported music, from Afro-Cuban rhythms that were then hugely popular throughout Africa to American rhythm and blues, including James Brown, Albert King, Otis Redding and John Lee Hooker, whose records felt so familiar to Ali that he was surprised to hear them sung in English rather than a local Malian language.
Ali Farka Touré
Seeing a performance by the National Ballet of Guinea in 1956 gave Ali his first encounter with the western acoustic guitar, and the conviction that he must master this instrument himself. With no teacher, he created a revolutionary new way of playing.
He developed a taste for a range of imported music, from Afro-Cuban rhythms that were then hugely popular throughout Africa to American rhythm and blues, including James Brown, Albert King, Otis Redding and John Lee Hooker, whose records felt so familiar to Ali that he was surprised to hear them sung in English rather than a local Malian language.
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