Ali Farka Touré
31 October 1939 – 6 March 2006
Ali Farka Touré was a Malian singer and guitarist whose playing linked the music of the Niger river region to American blues. Largely self-taught, he recorded from the 1970s onward and reached international audiences with albums including Talking Timbuktu with Ry Cooder and In the Heart of the Moon with Toumani Diabaté, both of which won Grammy Awards. He farmed near Niafunké and served as the town's mayor.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Ali Farka Touré.
- Ada Yonath (1939–2026) Overlapped 67 years →
- Adonis (1930–present) Overlapped 67 years →
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Overlapped 67 years →
- Ali Khamenei (1939–2026) Overlapped 67 years →
- Alice Munro (1931–2024) Overlapped 67 years →
- Amos Oz (1939–2018) Overlapped 67 years →
Life events
Born in a village on the Niger river in the Tombouctou Region of French Sudan, now Mali.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgBegan playing traditional single-string instruments as a boy and moved to the guitar in his late teens.
Travelled to Bulgaria and other countries with a Malian troupe, an experience that broadened his musical range.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHeld a job at the national radio station in Bamako, where some of his earliest recordings were made.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHis debut recording appeared on the French label Sonafric.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgThe collaboration was released in 1994 and won the Grammy Award for Best World Music Album the following year.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgRecorded on a mobile studio in his home town, the album took its name from the place where he farmed.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgServed as mayor of the Malian town and funded local road, sanitation and irrigation works.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgThe kora-and-guitar duo album won a Grammy Award, and their second collaboration, Ali and Toumani, appeared after his death.
Source: en.wikipedia.org