Originally Posted by Davey
Yeah, ditto on all those, but anything by Baaba is special to me. Love that beautiful Djam Leelii album he did with the blind singer/guitarist Mansour Seck. The full title is Djam Leelii: The Adventurers. It was originally recorded in 1982 and released with very limited distribution a couple years later, only to fall into obscurity. I guess the master tapes were even lost for many years. But it surfaced again in 1998 on a very nice sounding CD mastered by John Dent at Loud Mastering with a couple bonus tracks from those same '82 sessions, and since that time has become one of my favorites. Not just a favorite in guitar music, or African music, or any other limited genre, but an unqualified favorite. Beautiful, sublime and evocative, foreshadowing the wave of acoustic Afro-pop that was to come in the nineties. Masterful acoustic guitar work by Maal and Seck, with some electric credited to Aziz Dieng. One of those albums that I can just listen to over and over and over and.....
Lots of great bluesy west African music out there. Ali Farka Toure has a bunch, but his self titled one is a classic. He recorded another one a few years ago in a crumbling old schoolhouse outside of his home in the village of Niafunke on the banks of the Niger River with a state-of-the-art mobile studio called simple Niafunke. His protégé, Afel Bocoum, then recorded his own CD in that same broken down schoolhouse in Niafunke, amidst the snakes and mosquitoes, that is a haunting traditional acoustic set with a mesmerizing call and response vocal chorus. The name of the album and his group is Alkibar which means 'messenger of the great river'. Great stuff.
Salif Kaeita-have you heard?
AMAZING.
Also, i dont know if youd consider this "world", but Peter Gabriels' soundtrack of "the Last Temptation of Christ" is a terrific album with all sorts of influences.