Salzers

Reviews:

Singer-songwriter, blues guitar ace and budding musicologist Corey Harris starred in Martin Scorsese's Feel Like Going Home, the segment of the recent PBS documentary series The Blues that traced that music back to its African roots. The film featured performances from Mississippi's Otha Turner, who's single-handedly kept the fife and drum blues tradition alive, as well as African musicians Salif Keita and Ali Farka Toure, and during the filming Harris taped the collaborations with Keita, Toure and percussionist Souleyman Kane at the core of this CD. Turner died shortly after the film was finished, but his daughter, Shardmas, carries on the tradition with his band. Harris celebrates the common thread between fife and drum music and Toure's desert blues, programming the CD to jump from traditional acoustic blues to African folk song to fife and drum. The trio of Harris, blues harmonica legend Bobby Rush and drummer Sam Carr blends guitar, voice and percussion in the same proportions as Ali Farka Toure and Souleyman Kane. When Thomas and the Turner Band break down the beat on "Station Blues" you can hear the roots of funk, and as "Station Blues" flows into Harris, Toure and Kane's rendition of ".44 Blues" Kane's licks bear more than a passing resemblance to the Turner Band's, bringing the music full circle. Mississippi to Mali is Harris's best album, an important document that reinforces the cultural and musical ties between black America and the Motherland.