Lead Desert Blues – No Need (2020)

Gordon Koang is a fountain of warmth and joy, immediately accepting any stranger who strays into his presence. With a beaming smile that is unfettered by blindness, a condition he has lived with since birth, Gordon welcomes any and all around him, encouraging them to sit for a while and chat, maybe even to share a song.

Since the early 1990's, the Phantom Blues band has been touring the world as the two-time Grammy winning band for Taj Mahal, and appearing as a world-class all-star band on their own. The band members have a long list of credits as touring artists and top-call studio musicians for the likes of Bonnie Raitt, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, and many more. The Phantom Blues Band is comprised of Tony Braunagel (drums), Mike Finnigan (keyboards & vocals), Larry Fulcher (bass & vocals) Johnny Lee Schell (guitar & vocals), Joe Sublet (saxophones). Les Lovitt (trumpet), plus many all-star guest musicians. The band credits their combined influences for the compositions and song selections on this album: 'We all grew up on great songs from the late 50's on, and extended our library of influences fro the Great American Songbook, including the roots of the Blues.'

From the beating heart of the capital city Bamako to the rich musical soils of Niafunké, Mali has become synonymous with the raw desert blues sound. Featuring the likes of the legendary Tuareg band Tartit as well as Songhai bluesman Samba Touré, this Rough Guide also includes tracks by other unsung heroes, all of whom share the same goal of preserving a culture under serious threat.

SONGHOY BLUES is a band whose experiences in Mali have opened their eyes to universal problems plaguing people everywhere. Using the pain and lessons learned from having to leave their hometowns in northern Mali, the band realizes that human rights is a concept that extends far beyond what they have seen with their own eyes and far beyond just the borders of Mali. In order for the band to see their homes restored, they understand the fight must be fought on all fronts, for everybody across the spectrum. They are no longer refugees or exiles or four people with instruments—they are SONGHOY BLUES, a musical voice for empowerment and equality.

Recorded live at Melkweg in Amsterdam, Netherlands in late 2019, Bombino’s Live In Amsterdam marks the long-awaited first live album from the “world’s best guitarist” - Noisey

Through an arched gateway into the medina, inside a labyrinth of alleyways lined with shops selling spices and perfumed oils, rare vinyl and handmade instruments, comes the sound of the blues. Ancient and current, funky and rhythmic, buoyed by Arabic lyrics, soaring vocals and bass-heavy grooves, it seems to pulse from the heart of the Maghreb.

A pan-African All-Star band merging two cultures. Desert blues man Alhousseini Anivolla meets Ethio-jazz guitarist Girum Mezmur. Their album ”Afropentatonism” features repetitive grooves, hypnotic jams and raw guitar sounds.

The Grateful Dead went into a state of latent activity in the fall of 1974 that lasted until the spring of the following year when the band reconvened at guitarist/vocalist Bob Weir's Ace Studios to record Blues for Allah. The disc was likewise the third to be issued on their own Grateful Dead Records label. When the LP hit shelves in September of 1975, the Dead were still not back on the road – although they had played a few gigs throughout San Francisco…

With his new solo album Djourou, Malian composer Ballaké Sissoko connects with artists from distant horizons. Djourou is the cord that connects me to other people, says Ballake Sissoko with characteristic simplicity. It is a magnificent distillation of that same art: the art of being yourself and being with others. It combines pieces in which Ballake converses, all alone, with his kora, and others in which he takes palpable pleasure in dialoguing with musicians whose contributions come across like declarations of love. Ballaké links with the singer Camille, the band Feu!Chatterton, famous French MC Oxmo Puccino, the clarinetist Patrick Messina, the singer Piers Faccini, Salif Keïta's sacred voice, the gifted kora-player Sona Jobarteh, alongside cellist and longtime musical partner, Vincent Segal. Ballaké is an improviser and prodigy who is still reinventing himself and who takes his art to explore other worlds. Djourou presents the Malian kora players music in all its multi-faceted forms: intimate and universal, singular and plural, solo or in conversation.