Consumer Guide Album

Boubacar Traoré: Mariama [Sterns Africa, 1990]
Guitar and vocals from a Malian (and Parisian) schoolteacher turned singer-songwriter, who declaims like Ali Farka Touré (only Traoré's lovingly preserved Khassonke guitar has no Hook in it) or the Baaba Maal of Djam Leelii (and he accompanies himself). Pealing forth his precepts and laments with a resonant gravity rendered doubly mesmeric by the quiet, implacable instrumentation, Traoré brings me up short every time. If he says everything comes in its own time, then by gum I believe him. And will leave Maal's nice new Baayo to the specialists. A−