Northern Africa Music

  Daby Toure is from Mauritania, a country just west of northern Mali where the Toure name is well known. The family name also pops up in Senegal, the country immediately to the south of Mauritania.

 Other records we've heard from Mauritania had a very North African sound almost Berber in style - but Daby Toure is his own man, mixing a light post-Beatles folk pop sound with a syncopated gentle percussion which sounds a bit like the guitarists of Mali,  but without the blues-like feeling.

 People sometimes ask where African music is going: traveling in Africa and purchasing music in several countries in the 1980s and 90s, it seemed like Congolese rhumba would soon rule the whole continent; but Daby Toure and others have proved that wrong: with so many musicians and musical traditions to draw from, an entire continent (the world's second largest) could never be pinned down to one sound.

 So who can Daby Toure be compared to? How about Vieux Diop, Salif Keita, Habib Koite, Paul Simon and Henri Dikongue? Well, that's a start.

 Daby Toure is a singer, songwriter and musician who plays acoustic and electric guitars, bass, melodica, keyboards, percussion and a few traditional African instruments.

 Hopefully he'll become as big a star as the people I've compared him to, for DIAM is terrific cd - tell your friends.

    The Tuareg people of North Africa live primarily in the central part of the Sahara desert, a mountainous region: they travel all across the desert trading with other African groups, and their culture and language are considered Berber by the Muslim Arabs, who conquered north Africa and converted the Tuareg and other Berbers to Islam.   The Toureg culture is considered endangered today as people settle more and move into cities.

 The recordings on TUAREG MEMORIES are primarily field recordings but are especially recorded performances similar to a studio recording. Most sound like what some people call 'campfire' recordings, but track 14, 'Elehed Yalla Reicha' is an exception, as it was recorded at a concert in France, so the acoustics of the building help amplify the hand claps.

 Most tunes are very minimal in arrangement and accompaniment (for people nearly always on the move, there was no place for delicate or large musical instruments: voice, drums and hand claps had to do. Though most Taureg women know how to play the Imzad, a one-string fiddle, one is not used on this recording.) Each song changes very little from beginning to end. The loping beat of the drums reminds me of the loping pace of the camels on which these people so depend.

 The voices, though mostly female, remain at a medium pitch except when ullattin (the high-pitched yodel-like, tongue-wagging sound people all over Africa use).

 A fine addition for any seeking a comprehensive representation of Northern African stylings.