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Juldeh Camara , master of the one stringed fiddle and Gambian griot, comes together with renowned guitarist, producer Justin Adams, for a session exploring the connections between traditional West African rhythms and the Blues.
“Justin Adams”- My original love when I was young was The Clash and dub reggae. I like to keep things raw and swinging - so it never gets too pristine or too sweet. I love listening to cassettes of Moroccan music and Algerian music. I like trancey, circular rhythms and voices that are in between pleasure and pain, where it's bittersweet.
Justin Adams has been at the cutting edge of world music alchemy since the 1990's with Jah Wobble, Robert Plant (Adams co-wrote The Mighty Rearranger), Natacha Atlas, The Festival of the Desert, Tinariwen (producing their first and third albums), LO'JO. Taking influences from African, Arabic and Irish traditions as well as rock and roll and the Blues, his distinctive, driving guitar style is the missing link between Bo Diddley and Munir Bashir. With Tell No Lies, Adams delves deeper into the African origins of black American music, following the roots of New Orleans and Mississippi soul right back to the Songhai, Fulani and Toureg peoples of West Africa.
Juldeh Camara is an African Master Musician, taught to play by his blind father, who himself was taught directly by the djinn. Playing the ritti, a one-stringed fiddle and West African ancestor of the violin, he participated as a griot (a West African poet, praise singer and repository of oral tradition) in traditional Fula society. Juldeh has the drive and effortless flow of a great Bluesman. While his instrument brings to mind Delta players like Big Joe Williams, as well as Ali Farka Touré, there is a lilt in his playing that hints at the ancient links between North Africa and the Celtic World. He describes magical shapes on his ritti; one minute it's Blues harp, the next a Celtic fiddle, then a Saharan herdsman's flute. It is hard to believe all this emotion, range and flexibility comes from just one string.
Find out more about Justin Adams at Real World Records
Find out more about Juldeh Camara at Real World Records