ARTIST PROFILE: Vieux Farka Touré & Julia Easterlin

Vieux Farka Touré, the son of famed Malian blues guitarist and singer Ali Farka Touré, is truly a man after his father’s heart. In their youths, both Tourés had prepared themselves for military professions before taking the ultimate detour into music-making. As the son set out on his own music career, Vieux even assumed his father’s moniker—Farka, or donkey—as a testament to Ali’s strength and tenacity. But rather than languishing in the shadow of Ali, Vieux seems content on following his own musical path. His guitarwork channels the desert blues style of his father, while spinning new influences and genres into the mix.
This is most evident on Touré’s latest, Touristes, a collaboration with Georgia-born songstress Julia Easterlin. The duo hit things off in 2014 with a chance meeting at a New York studio, and their rare stylistic pairing blossomed into a a full-fledged project. Touré’s fleet-fingered torrents of bluesy, folk-flecked guitar propel the mix of originals and cover songs forward, providing harmonious counterpoints to Easterlin’s voice, which glides from jazzy to ethereal.
Easterlin has an ear for lush harmony—her solo concerts often find her with nothing but a microphone and an electronic “loop station” that multi-tracks her voice, assembling it gradually into a choir. On Touristes, the minimalist, repetitive structures of Easterlin’s vocals dovetail elegantly with the buzzes, hums, and drones of traditional stringed African instruments, including the njarka and ngoni.
The tone of of the album travels from gentle and joyful (“Little Things”) to haunting and chilling (a cover of Lead Belly’s murder ballad “Where Did You Sleep Last Night,” and the original "Took My Brother Down," which tackles the fatal shooting of Michael Brown).
The duo’s musical alchemy will be on full display at the Howard Theatre on Sunday, September 27, 2015 beginning at 7:30 PM. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster. For a quick sample, check out Touré and Easterlin performing an acoustic, live version of “Little Things” at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.