& present

How the blues travelled from the Western Sahara to the Mississippi Delta: TINARIWEN + T-MODEL FORD + The Screening of ‘The Land Where The Blues Began (Alan Lomax)’

In autumn 2009, the AB will be organising a tribute to the American ethno-musicologist Alan Lomax (1915-2002). It is thanks to his pioneering work that anyone can now acquaint themselves with the earliest folksong recordings. Together with his father, he was responsible for the discovery of blues legend Leadbelly and folk icon Woody Guthrie. Lomax was later the most important staff member of the Archive of Folk Song or to the Library of Congress in Washington.

As part of this tribute, the AB will be organising and evening with 2 performers who are able to perfectly demonstrate the link shown by Alan Lomax between the blues of the Western Sahara and that of the Mississippi Delta.

The Touareg collective Tinariwen were already onto their third CD when they released ‘Aman Iman’ in 2007. De Standaard wrote at the time: 'Rapture from the desert... what fantastic power... this is deep, hypnotic music that is rooted in centuries old craftsmanship’. That was later followed by festivals like Glastonbury and Womad, concerts with Carlos Santana and Robert Plant, support act to The Rolling Stones and positive press reactions worldwide. This is still timeless music that blows over to us from another universe. African blues as it were, that draws its grief from the heavy stride that the Touareg tribes pursued with the Malinese government. A new album, recorded in Tessalit (North Mali), has just been finished and should be released this summer.

T-Model Ford, born James Lewis Carter Ford, year of birth: unknown (although 1924 would seem to be most likely), is one of the last original blues men of the Mississippi Delta (just take a look at the brilliant DVD ‘M for Mississippi’ www.mformississippi.com). His life is one of a jack-of-all-trades, interrupted by a 10-year jail term (working on the chain gang) for murder. The Fat Possum label (see: young lads, The Black Keys and that other old blues legend R.L. Burnside) looked after T-Model Ford and already released 5 of the man's albums. His music is also the last memory of the raw blues of the Mississippi Delta that is rooted in the Western Sahara. We are also extremely pleased that T-Model Ford will be visiting AB again at the age of 85(?). Isn't it about time he retired? ‘No way ... only the good lord knows when I'm gonna stop’.

On this evening, we will also screen the documentary ‘The Land Where The Blues Began’ from the hand of Alan Lomax. This documentary is one part of Lomax’ five-part American Patchwork series. In 1979, Alan Lomax, John Bishop and Worth Long went up the Mississippi Delta looking for the roots of the blues. They came into contact with charismatic storytellers who bring you back to the origins of this Afro-American genre. Ex-convicts, railway-workers and dock-workers sung their lungs out. Get to know the authentic work songs, the heartbeat of hard-labour. This documentary contains performances from oldies like R.L. Burnside and Jack Owens. Lomax also wrote a book on this subject, with the same title, which won the National Book Critics Award for non-fiction in 1993.

Those who want to see the film now already can head to the brilliant website Folkstreams.

‘The Mississippi hill country sheltered a fantastic African music that fed the blues’ (Alan Lomax)