National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

Vieux Farka Touré is the son of the late Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré, and Vieux follows in his father's legendary footsteps with his own take on Malian "blues"—the spare, acoustic, guitar-driven style pioneered by his father.

Vieux's self-titled debut was released in February, 2007, and featured the last recordings of his father, who passed away in 2006, as well as a guest appearance from the equally legendary kora virtuoso (and longtime family friend) Toumani Diabaté.

But Vieux was not always the obvious successor to Ali's musical legacy. It wasn't until Ali had lost much of his movement to bone cancer, when Vieux's recording was being made, that Ali realized just how musically adept Vieux had become. Growing up, Vieux played calabash (a dried gourd drum used in Mali) and other percussion, but his father didn't want Vieux to face the same struggles he had as a musician, and discouraged him from following the same path.

The Touré family comes from a noble lineage, in a land where musicians usually come from a musical caste, lower on the social scale. Ali went against his own family's societal role to become a musician and suffered as a result; first toiling to make a living at home in Mali, and then getting cheated by a French producer early in his career.

Ali wanted his son to become a soldier. But Vieux secretly took up the guitar behind closed doors. He enrolled in the Arts Institute in Bamako, the same institution where Habib Koite and many other Malian musicians of note studied. When Ali realized Vieux was not going to give up on playing guitar, he enlisted his good friend Toumani Diabaté as Vieux's advisor. When young North American producer Eric Herman expressed interest in recording Vieux he had to seek permission from Diabaté, the senior Touré, and other community elders. Once Diabaté and Touré heard Vieux's initial recordings, they realized they had underestimated the younger Touré's virtuosity.

Vieux Farka Touré is the only recording of father and son playing together. The recording sessions, which took place in the storied Studio Bogolan in Bamako, Mali, had an especially urgent feel to them, as Ali was about to make his final trip to Paris for medical attention. Ali Farka Touré's entourage literally carried him into the studio and placed a guitar in his lap. After forty-five minutes of playing, he was carried back out to his car and headed to the airport. Ali Farka Touré died a few months later back in Bamako. From his hospital bed, he played his son's new recording for all his visitors, proudly telling them, "That's my son! That's me!" —Courtesy Calabash Music