Today, Petaluma Records has released Abdallah Oumbadougou’s “Iwouksane,” the second song to be pulled from Amghar: The Godfather of Tuareg Music – VOL. 1, a compilation from the late Abdallah Oumbadougou, the Saharan-born Tuareg guitarist and originating architect of the Desert Blues genre. The double vinyl LP features 14 tracks remastered by 5-time GRAMMY-winning engineer Michael Graves, and includes 6 unreleased, never-before-heard original songs. The album will be released digitally and as a double vinyl LP on March 1 and is now available for pre-order.
“Iwouksane” follows the unreleased song “Le Iwitian Ourgueza Gueakelen,” which Guitar World called “a stellar introduction to the genre’s acoustic side, with Oumbadougou’s rich, melodic, and up-tempo leads contrasting beautifully to the ever-present rumble of the song’s subtle low-end – a desert blues hallmark.”
For the first time, Petaluma Music’s Amghar: The Godfather of Tuareg Music – VOL. 1 compiles studio recordings that Oumbadougou made in the first decade of the 21st century to create a broad survey of the work by a revolutionary guitarist and community leader whose impact in spreading awareness of Touareg music and culture cannot be overstated.
Abdallah Oumbadougou is a seminal figure in development of what western audiences have termed “Desert Blues” or “Tuareg rock,” but which was originally known as assouf, which means ‘longing’, ‘nostalgia’, ‘the pain that isn’t physical’ in Tamashek, the language of the Tuareg; a large and diverse group of peoples that inhabit the Sahara in a vast area across northwest Africa. “Amghar,” a Berber term for a tribal chief, is a reference to the artist’s role in shaping this culture, and makes the case for Oumbadougou’s legendary status as an instrumentalist, narrator, and a worthy rock guitar hero. Oumbadougou’s early work was instrumental in influencing current successful Tuareg musicians such as Mdou Moctar, Bombino and Tinariwen.
