20 albums in 20 days Meeting by the River by Ry Cooder and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt

I was nominated by a friend to post 20 album covers in 20 days to Facebook. The album covers should be of albums that have had an impact on my life. No comments or explanations were expected on Facebook. However, this blog does seem a suitable place to post explanations and comments on those albums.

The problem is, this album did not appear on that list. On reflection, I think it probably does qualify for a place on that list of 20 albums. Though I'd find it hard to remove one of the 20 I've already posted. So I include this album cover as a plus one.

Sometimes music comes out of the blue. The radio was on in the dining room at Cowden Rectory in Kent. It was Easter 1993. I was just walking past when I heard one of the pieces from this album. Whatever my destination was it suddenly changed. I went into the room and closed the door and just stood there and listened. When it finished I listened out for the name of the album and the artist. I had the CD in my hands within the week.
It is an extraordinary collaboration. Cooder and Bhatt had met just half an hour before the recording. It was totally unplanned and unrehearsed. Completely improvised. 
I don't know really what grabbed my attention. Perhaps it was a sound so completely at odds in that setting. That fusion of East and West was so different from the traditional Church of England songs played at Easter. . Cooder's slide guitar plucking out the blues and Bhatt's homemade instrument flooded the Rectory dining room with reminiscent to classical Indian raga. I fell into this music and played the CD over and over. 
Click here to hear Ganges Delta Blues, probably my favourite track.

About a year later - Stephen - a colleague and friend - and actually the guy who nominated me to post the 20 album covers in 20 days; told me about Ry Cooder's collaboration with Ali Farka Toure. I've written about that a bit, here.

One thing I found so fascinating about the album Talking Timbuktu is my growing interest in the Blues. I didn't really know anything much about the blues. I still don't really. But when I hear it something inside me seems to melt. It seems to fit into a rhythm that suits something inside of me. I can't really explain it. Here's a performance of Amandrai, from the album. Click here for the performance.

I loved all of this music and was intrigued by the Malian traditional instruments and its rhythms. It connected with something I'd realised about modern western music. The roots of our music can be traced back to Malian and West African traditional music. 

In fact, I remember hearing on the radio or reading somewhere that jazz is a fusion of West African traditional music - brought to the US through the slave trade and Eastern European music, brought to the US by Jewish refugees. Klezmer. 

Then in 1997, I heard about another collaboration. The Buena Vista Social Club. I bought it the moment I heard about it. I played it so much. My father would have loved this music. And I loved the albums that came out of this one, especially those by the singer, Ibrahim Ferrer and pianist, Reuben Gonzalez.