Hey guitar god! Tell me a story!

September 16, 1:11 PMSF Music ExaminerDerk Richardson

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New "Guitar Superstar" Vicki Genfan

When a guitar quits telling a story, that’s when my obsessive passion wanes. That’s why I was happy not to attend the recent Guitar Superstar contest at the Great American Music Hall, especially after reading Joel Selvin’s SF Chronicle account of the Guitar Player magazine–hosted event.

Wanking as spectator sport does not an enlightening evening make.

But I was delighted to read that acoustic guitarist Vicki Genfan garnered top honors in a field typically dominated by testosterone-driven Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson wannabes. Of course the Chronicle neglected to run a photo of Genfan, which says something or other about preconceptions and priorities.

I became acquainted with Genfan’s playing when I was an editor at Acoustic Guitar magazine. She was one of many guitarists who visited the San Rafael offices and played a solo mini concert for the staff. Although she takes a backseat to no one in terms of technical facility, Genfan, like such acoustic guitar trailblazers as Leo Kottke and Alex de Grassi, for instance, uses her jaw-dropping chops in service of storytelling, however complicated.

That’s what I love about African guitar: the storytelling implicit in the scintillating sound.

King Sunny Adé piqued widespread American interest in West African pop guitar in the early 1980s. My immersion, however, owes to insatiable guitar aficionado (and player) Henry Kaiser.

In the early 1990s, through their A World Out of Time: Henry Kaiser & David Lindley in Madagascar compilations, and individual-artist spin-offs, Kaiser and Lindley brought to light such such Malagasy virtuosos as D’Gary and Dama Mahaleo.

But for more than a decade before that, Henry had been shoving various recordings at me and insisting, “Listen to this!” So, such West African guitarists as Ali Farka Touré, Baaba Maal, Mansour Seck, and Sekou “Diamond Fingers” Diabate formed the kind of sacred constellation for me that Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page do for other guitar idolaters.

Touré, often called the John Lee Hooker of West Africa, died in March 2006. Later that year, his son, Vieux Farka Touré, released his debut album. Like Femi Kuti (son of Nigerian legend Fela), Vieux Farka Touré, from Bamako, Mali, has adopted his father’s fundamentals while attempting to advance them.

While I wasn’t enamored with his guitar tone (it could have been the house mix) when he opened for the thrilling guitar-driven Sahara desert band Tinariwen at a San Francisco Jazz Festival show in 2007, his picking was dazzling, his singing riveting, and his stage presence magnetic.  

He plays Yoshi’s in S.F. on Wednesday, Sept. 17, presented by Guitar Player.
 
Speaking of guitar players who tell a story, you know that Ry Cooder is making an extremely rare club appearance at the Great American Music Hall, October 2 and 3, don’t you? But that’s another story for another post.

                Vieux Farka Touré photo by Linda Williams Photography.

 Vieux Farka Touré performing "Ana":