Diaraby
The Bambara closer of Talking Timbuktu, whose guitar riff a radio audience voted to keep.
Ry Cooder, from Talking Timbuktu (1994)
- Written by
- Traditional, arranged by Ali Farka Toure
- Released
- 1994
- Length
- 7:25
- Album
- Talking Timbuktu
Diaraby closes Talking Timbuktu at 7:25 and is sung in Bambara. It is credited as a traditional piece arranged by Ali Farka Toure. Its main guitar riff was chosen for the Geo-quiz segment of the radio programme The World, a joint production of PRI and the BBC, and was kept after a listener vote. Wikipedia's article on Cooder describes the song as the theme to the Geo Quiz.
Toure sings and plays electric guitar. Cooder plays electric guitar, bass guitar and marimba and uses an accordion sample, with Oumar Toure on congas and chorus and Hamma Sankare on calabash and chorus. Larry Hirsch is credited as mixer. Cooder said in 1994, while the album was being mixed, that Toure played with semi-open tunings and a groove that sat perfectly inside the music.
Live
At the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival on 30 April 1994, Toure and Cooder played it as the sixth of nine songs, listed there as Diarby. Corey Harris, who saw the set, remembered Cooder on slide guitar. A separate live version, running 5:28 and recorded for KCRW-FM's Morning Becomes Eclectic, appeared on the 1994 promotional single Ai Du + 2.
On stage
- 1994-04-30, New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Fair Grounds Race Course Sixth of nine songs.
More songs by Ry Cooder
Ai Du, Little Sister, Chan Chan, How Can You Keep On Moving (Unless You Migrate Too)
Sources
- Talking Timbuktu, Wikipedia
- Ali Farka Toure with Ry Cooder setlists, setlist.fm
- RIP Ali Farka Toure: a tribute from Corey Harris, PopMatters
- Ry Cooder on Recording With Ali Farka Toure, Jas Obrecht (2024-10-29)
- Talking Timbuktu (UK vinyl release, credits), Discogs
- Ai Du + 2 (promo CD single), Discogs
- Ry Cooder, Wikipedia