12’ Bar Ramblin’ #35 ‘West African Blues’ with Stefan Matussek

 The Origin of the Blues lies in the musical traditions of slaves brought over to America from Africa. Call-and-Response work songs and free form field hollers sung by the slaves and subsequently the sharecroppers in the southern United States formed the basis of the genre. The pentatonic melodies and song structures are likely the legacy of traditional African folk music. West African Blues is a form of popular music that, on the one hand returns to the root of blues music also fuses West African traditional music and American Blues music. Local instruments such as the Ngoni, Kora, Djembe or Balafon are often used and collaborations with US and English blues musicians are not uncommon. This music received wider attention through the influential Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré…