Honoring his roots, Touré blazes his own trail

August 20, 2011|By Siddhartha Mitter, Globe Correspondent

Vieux Farka Tour, who keeps his fathers signature guitar close at hand,… (trevor traynor )

VIEUX FARKA TOURÉ

At: Brighton Music Hall on Wednesday at 9 p.m.

Tickets: $25, $20 in advance. 617-876-4275.

www.worldmusic.org

Four years ago a conversation with Vieux Farka Touré was a loose affair held in a kitchen in Queens while the Malian singer-guitarist and his bandmates cooked lunch amid boxes of CDs. It was Touré’s first US tour; he had a name - he is the son of the great “desert blues’’ maestro Ali Farka Touré - and a debut album, but he was otherwise mostly unknown.

A lot has changed since 2007.

Vieux, as he’s known, has put out three more albums in quick succession: “Fondo’’ in 2009, a live CD last year, and this year’s “The Secret,’’ rounding up top guest talent from Mali and the US jazz and jam-band scenes. He’s been remixed by global-minded producers such as Karsh Kale and Eccodek. And he has emerged as a next-generation African star, playing the kickoff concert for the 2010 soccer World Cup in South Africa.

Touring has become much more frenetic, Vieux concedes on the phone from Bamako, Mali, where he still spends as much time as he can. “Back then we were taking it easy, staying around the house. Now it’s all a rush,’’ he says. “But we still keep up the family atmosphere.’’

Family is a core value for Vieux, who plays Brighton Music Hall on Wednesday. Being the son of Ali Farka Touré gives him royal pedigree among guitarists and world-music fans. And since the elder Touré’s death in 2006, Vieux has not only slung on his father’s iconic black guitar, but is also now helping take care of his mother and extended family in Niafunké, the tiny town on the Niger River that Ali Farka made famous.

But Vieux’s career has as much to do with his chosen family, a trans-Atlantic network of musicians and friends that has put him on a novel music and business path. It blends two generations of Malian virtuosos with a Brooklyn-based crew of young music entrepreneurs and producers who in turn have connected him into the broader US scene.

This explains how “The Secret’’ got produced by Eric Krasno, cofounder of the band Soulive. And also how it features Dave Matthews, who sings back and forth with Vieux on the bilingual “All the Same’’; Derek Trucks, whose slide guitar illuminates a beautiful track called “Aigna’’; and John Scofield, whose guitar interplay with Vieux on “Gido’’ is a fascinating encounter of voice and technique.

“It’s my favorite record so far,’’ Vieux says. “It’s something different and finely wrought. I wanted to make something that is not like what everyone else is making. So that people hear it and say, ‘Who is that?’ ’’