I'm Clyde Macfarlane, an NCTJ qualified journalist and illustrator.

On Tour With Vieux Farka Touré

“The sound of our blues is dry like the Sahara, but it’s the vast open space that shapes the desert blues. For me it will always be the music of openness.”

Take two landscapes that have given birth to blues music- the Sahara Desert and the oilfields of Texas. Both are coincidentally linked by open space, and so it’s perhaps fitting that, of the many guitarists with whom Vieux Farka Touré is compared, Stevie Ray Vaughn has entered the mix. Vieux’s latest tour is reflectively loud, swinging and electric. It’s a change of pace for the appointed “Hendrix of the Sahara”, and I was keen to find out more.

How have you changed the desert blues? Has it changed more under your control than, say, under Ali Farka Touré?

“The best I can do is take inspiration and make music with it. I do think my style is particularly open in bringing different styles, but then again my generation has so much more opportunity for exposure. Ali had little exposure- he changed the blues tradition ofMali through his own experimentation. It sounds roughly the same now, just a new generation with new opportunities.”

There was a great cameo from Ali on the title track of The Secret. Will that be the last we’ll hear from him?

“Probably, but I can’t say for sure. I don’t know exactly what World Circuit has recorded and not yet released. Ali recorded that track during our first session in 2005, which was for my solo album. He was supposed to record two tracks but he just kept going and played the guitar loop we used on The Secret. I think he knew it would be his last time in a studio- it was an incredibly sad yet proud moment for both of us. That memory is something I always carry with me.”

What about your relationship with Toumani Diabaté– how important has he been in building your career?

“Toumani has been hugely important for me and my career. He’s a second father to me. Before my first record I played in Toumani’s band and he taught me so much. He taught me about music from the south of Mali, like Bambara and Mandinka music. This allowed me to bring new styles into my playing. Toumani is everything to me- we are closer than close.”

Any plans for the near future?

“I have a new album coming out this year with the Israeli musician Idan Raichel. It was recorded at the end of 2010 in Tel Aviv. It was totally spontaneous, totally improvised and totally acoustic. It’s called The Tel Aviv Session and we’ve named the group the Touré-Raichel Collective. It’s something very different for me and I’m excited to see how the public will react. And after that? Who knows! I have a few ideas but that’s my secret for now.”