River

Amadou Cisse, Ali Farka Toure | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 1, 1991)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Mango
• ASIN: B000003QKH
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #92,076 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #33 in Music > World Music > Africa > Mali

Track Listings

1. Ai Bine

2. Kenouna

3. Toungere

4. Heygana

5. Jungou

6. Goydiotodam

7. Lobo

8. Tamala

9. Boyrei

10. Tangambara

11. Instrumental

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars my personal soundtrack, December 16, 1999

By 

Susie (Northern California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: River (Audio CD)

I listen to this cd for hours on a continuous loop at work. It's hypnotic yet complex with the African version of the sounds of the American south combined with his haunting voice. (Unfortunately I am a musical illiterate in terms of describing similar genres.) Beautiful twanging tunes and melodies. I bought it on a whim and am a complete devotee.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my all time favorites..., April 29, 2005

By 

Matthieu P. Raillard (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: River (Audio CD)

Although I have owned this album for almost ten years now, I haven't gotten a chance to write a review for it, partly because it's so good and so much a part of my life that I didn't think about it. For those who don't know him, Ali Farka is a "blues" guitarist from Timbuktu, Mali, who has created one of the most unique sounds in music. One critic once described his guitar stylings as "listening to John Lee Hooker played backwards", and in a way, he was right. The rhythms are different --African, Arabic-- and the melodies unforgettable. Toure sings in a variety of languages; while I can understand the occasional French he uses, the majority are local dialects, adding a wonderful dimension to his music. I put blues in quotations marks because it isn't really blues, but that's the closest music we have to Toure's works. It's happy, melancholy, energetic, sentimental and fervently passionate all at once. This is in my opinion his best album, followed by "Talking Timbuktu" which he recorded with Ry Cooder. Check him out!