Jimi Hendrix of the Desert
Image by Ron Wyman
Crossposted from Haaretz
Image by Ron Wyman
“Bombino” is the nickname of Omara Moctar, a singer and virtuoso electric guitarist from the wandering Tuareg tribes of the Sahara Desert in the African country of Niger. Thanks to his special style of playing, combining an ancient musical tradition with influences of electric blues and Western psychedelics, his fine debut album, “Agadez,” which came out in April, is winning significant exposure worldwide. On October 18, Bombino and his band performed in Israel for the first time at the Barby Club in Tel Aviv.
In the wake of the album Bombino has been granted the complimentary title of “the desert Hendrix” and he has been compared to the great blues guitarist John Lee Hooker and to African artists like the Tinariwen band and Ali Farka Toure.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
