{"id":41271,"date":"2019-11-04T11:15:11","date_gmt":"2019-11-04T10:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/nick-gold-ali-farka-toure-was-larger-than-life\/"},"modified":"2022-03-07T14:55:00","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T13:55:00","slug":"nick-gold-ali-farka-toure-was-larger-than-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/nick-gold-ali-farka-toure-was-larger-than-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Gold: “Ali Farka Tour\u00e9 was larger than life”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The English producer at the head of World Circuit Records\u00a0has played a key role in the large circulation of African and Cuban music in the Western countries. For PAM he revisited his personal history. First milestone: his meeting with the great Ali Farka Tour\u00e9.<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n

Photo: Ali Farka and Ry Cooder at studio Bogolan, Bamako \u00a9 Jonas Karlsson<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Paris. Sitting at the bar of an hotel located within a stone\u2019s throw of Gare du Nord train station, Nick Gold is gazing at a wall of vinyl records and his eyes stop on the album of Franco \u2013 the Congolese musician, dashing and smart with a large smile on his face, is standing in front of Pigalle metro station. The picture was taken at a time when Paris was undoubtedly the advanced post of African music in the West. However, London also had its crew of enthusiasts, who would soon undertake wondrous projects. Nick Gold was one of them. The world owes him Buena Vista Social Club\u2019s success and the worldwide dissemination of artists such as Cheikh L\u00f4, Oumou Sangar\u00e9, Orchestra Baobab and Ali Farka Tour\u00e9. More than thirty years have passed since the beginning of <\/span>World Circuit<\/span>, a label he finally sold to the BMG group, although he still runs the artistic direction. The young keen jazz listener and soon-to-be-teacher, who earned a living working in record stores, did not know that music was going to change his life to such an extent. And more particularly the sounds originating from the African continent: the first time he entered a studio, it was to record Kenya-based Shirati Jazz. Some time later, Nick Gold met a Malian artist who would eventually find\u00a0a place in his own pantheon of music heroes: Ali Farka Tour\u00e9.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


When did you hear Ali\u2019s music for the first time, and how did you two meet?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

It was around 1986, 1987. Ali\u2019s music was being played on the British radio at that time by two Djs, Andy Kershaw and Charlie Gillet, and this is how we got to hear about him. His albums were starting to be reviewed in magazines too. I think that Andy, one of the two radio DJs, came to Paris, and as he was buying African records, he picked up this one by chance. Ali had already released a series of records in France.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of them, that would be known as \u201cthe Red album\u201d, had just a photo of him and some other people on the front cover that only read \u201cAli Farka Tour\u00e9\u201d,\u00a0with the tracklisting printed on the back. No other information at all\u2026 People loved this record because it was just acoustic guitar, voice, and percussion. It was sort of mesmerizing, you could catch glimpses of blues music, and a little quote of\u00a0an Otis Redding song.\u00a0This helped\u00a0people identify themselves with the music, and whoever heard the album liked it immediately. It\u00a0has\u00a0very strong songs, the repertoire\u00a0is very good and it\u00a0is beautifully recorded… It\u2019s a great record!<\/span><\/p>\n

Although many people started to talk about it, the music still remained a mystery because of the lack of information \u2013 we didn\u2019t even know where it was from\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ali Farka Tour\u00e9 – “Red Album”<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Toumani Diabat\u00e9, who was working in England with Womad [an England-based music festival founded by Peter Gabriel] at the time, assured the man was from Mali, where he was already a famous musician. This is when Anne Haunt, who I was working with, went there to find him. She went to the national radio station in Bamako, where he had used to work for many years, and she asked for him. They made a special broadcast and they just said\u00a0<\/span>\u201cthere\u2019s a white woman here looking for Ali Farka Tour\u00e9. If he is in Bamako, can he come to the radio station\u00a0?\u201d<\/span><\/i>\u00a0Although he was living in the North of the country, in Niafunk\u00e9, he happened to be in Bamako at this time, so I think it was luck. He met Anne and she brought him over in London to make a series of small concerts and record music. So the first time I met him was in the taxi, as he was just off the airplane that brought him to London.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


\nWhat did you like about him?\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Apart from his music which captures you very quickly and quite powerfully, he was really a \u201clarger-than-life\u201d character, incredibly charming and self-assured: the sort of person everyone will look at when he enters a room. Now imagine\u00a0when he would start to play music in front of you!<\/span><\/p>\n

The most beautiful thing was to watch him play the guitar because it seemed like he was at one with the instrument, literally caressing the wood in an effortless gesture. He really lived it. Every note Ali played was meant. There were no\u00a0useless doodles or fills, it was very subtle and mesmerizing.<\/span><\/p>\n

When you have been listening to records for a long time, you have a list of the heroes you think you will never meet \u2013\u00a0like Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Charlie Parker or Lester Young\u2026 You think you might be able to see them on stage \u2013 if they are\u00a0not already dead. So being with Ali in a room and watching him play, you realize that he\u2019s someone of that stature, of that level \u2013\u00a0more than anyone I had ever met before. Someone very special and important to me.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nWas there any connection between his guitar playing and the way he played the traditional Malian instruments?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Yes. I think the first instrument he had was a one-string traditional guitar called\u00a0<\/span>\u201cnjurkel\u201d<\/span><\/i>, generally used to summon spirits during ceremonies. But musicians\u00a0played it like a\u00a0<\/span>ngoni<\/span><\/i>, with a lot of hammering-on\u00a0<\/span>[a playing technique performed on a stringed instrument by sharply bringing a fretting-hand finger down on the fingerboard behind a fret, causing a note to sound]<\/span><\/i>. He fell in love with the instrument as a young boy. And then in 1956\/57, in Guinea, he saw Kante Facelli [a famous djeli guitarist, at that time member of \u201cLes Ballets Africains de Keita Fodeba\u201d] play guitar: he was immediately captivated and since then he had always wanted to play guitar. At that time, earned a living as a\u00a0chauffeur. I think he finally got a mandoline or a guitar, a borrowed one, and he said that he just transposed the technique of the njurkel to the guitar, a very easy task for the young amateur musician. The only problem, he said, was that as he had now six strings instead of one, he was worried about the other strings being jealous of the one he was touching. So he had to\u00a0find\u00a0a\u00a0technique to\u00a0play with the other\u00a0strings too…
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