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Ali Farka Touré
A Precious Legacy
Paris
26/07/2006 -
RFI Musique: How did you go about working with Ali on this project? What conditions was the album Savane recorded in?
Nick Gold: Well, back then Ali was spending a lot of time working on his crops in Niafunké. He hadn't performed an international concert for five or six years at that point, because he felt that if he couldn't invest himself 100% in what he was doing, it was better not to play at all. But then, around two and a half years ago, Ali sent me a couple of demos – demos for two albums of extremely traditional music, very rough, raw recordings that were completely brilliant, made with just guitar, ngoni (traditional lutes) and a bit of percussion. Ali was never one to send demos. He'd never sent me one in his life, in fact, so right away I knew this meant he was ready to go into the studio and record.
When I called Ali up after receiving the demos, he told me a lot of musicians had come to see him in Niafunké and they'd ended up playing traditional Fulani and Songhai music together. He said he'd come to realise that this music was totally unknown in Mali outside the north of the country. And he was afraid it would die out altogether if he didn’t find a way of preserving it and introducing it to the rest of Mali and the rest of the world. Anyway, we headed off to Bamako after that and arranged an initial recording session where Ali spent three days in the studio, just him singing and accompanying himself on guitar with two ngoni-players. We laid down a few vocals and a bit of percussion then after that we went off to record at the Hôtel Mandé where the album he made with Toumani Diabate, In The Heart of The Moon, was made, as well as Toumani's own album with the Symmetric Orchestra. After that, we finished up the recordings with a group of ngoni-players from northern Mali. I have to say, Ali was a lot more involved in the project than usual. He was a lot more open to suggestions. I think he wanted something very full and complete this time round.
Was he aware that he was ill while he was working on the album?
His primary motivation in making the album was to preserve this traditional music so it didn't get lost. But yes, gradually he did come to realise that he was ill. I think that meant he sang with greater intensity than ever before and put a lot more of himself into this album. Never, in all the time we'd worked together, had I seen him singing so much from his depths – apart from maybe at a couple of concerts or at home sometimes. I think in a way this was very much his "final wish."
Savane is an album on which you can feel Ali trying to push his music as far as he possibly can, taking the traditional rhythms of northern Mali as close as he can to American blues…
Well, it's funny you mention that because Ali was actually convinced that with Savane he was making the most traditional album of his career. But a lot of people perceived it as being the most bluesy thing he'd ever done. A lot of the tracks on it are actually adaptations of traditional Peul and Songhai music dating back hundreds of years. But Ali ended up putting a lot of his own life and experience into the lyrics. We tried out a lot of new things on the album, like adding a touch of harmonica and saxophone here and there. And it worked really well; it sounded really natural, in fact. Maybe it's because Ali delved so far back into tradition that he ended up meeting the blues…
There's a real sense of wisdom about Savane, as if the tracks on it are imbued with all the human and musical experience he'd acquired throughout his life…
Yes, I have to say I absolutely agree with you there. A young musician just starting out on his career could never have made an album like this! Nothing happened in a rush; everything is done in its own sweet time at the right tempo. Only a man who really lived his music the way Ali did could have made an album like this.
Savane seems to speak to both the body and soul; the songs on it are addressed to human beings as well as those in the spirit world. Do you think Savane is an especially spiritual album?
Yes, I do. There are two songs in particular that come from what Ali used to call "voodoo music," songs from the Ghimbala cult that Ali was very much involved in in his lifetime. Normally, he would never sing those songs. And when he launched into the song called Banga I remember there was this absolute hush in the studio – all the musicians stopped dead in their tracks! But he just stood there saying, "I don't care! It's no big deal!"
Normally he was very committed to the idea of respecting the secrets of Ghimbala and the river spirits, wasn't he?
I think at the end of his life he was a lot more comfortable about a lot of things. He wasn't afraid of things any more. So long as he played with absolute conviction, everything was OK. He was a lot freer towards the end, you know. Apart from the very end, where he suffered a lot physically, Ali remained very strong and very true to himself. He was totally at ease with himself and what he was doing: 100% Ali right to the end!
You spent several decades working with Ali. On this last album did you ever feel the pair of you were trying to push things even further?
A few weeks before he passed away, Ali actually got in touch with me and asked me to make some changes to a track. He really invested himself in the whole creative process this time round and listened to the recordings very intensely. This was really totally different to anything we'd ever done together before. And yes, I believe that with this project we took things to a higher sphere.
Eglantine Chabasseur
Translation : Julie Street
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