Vieux Farka Touré News

When desert blues pioneer Ali Farka Toure, one of Africa's best-loved musicians, died last year in his native Mali, few could have imagined his son would follow so quickly in his footsteps.

Barely a year after the death of his double-Grammy-winning father, Vieux Farka Toure begins his first major tour of North America and the British Isles this weekend, a critically acclaimed debut album already under his belt.

Drawing on the same haunting Saharan blues that made his father famous, his music pays homage to his family roots around Niafunke, a village on the banks of Mali's Niger river near the fabled trading town of Timbuktu.

"That's where I have everything, my fields, my mother, my family," he told Reuters in an interview from Bamako on Thursday before leaving for London to begin his tour.

As well as inheriting a blues-inflected guitar style, albeit infused with a new generation of influences from reggae to rock, Vieux Farka Toure is also continuing his father's quiet campaign to improve the lot of some of the poorest in his country.

Dubbed "the African John Lee Hooker," Ali Farka Toure eschewed glamour. Considering himself above all a farmer, he tended 350 hectares (865 acres) in Niafunke, where he was made mayor for setting up projects to help local women and children.

"Me and my father, it was like a pupil and his teacher. He did not just teach me music, he taught me to live daily life, what was good, what was bad. They're the same instructions I follow to this day," Vieux said.

CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME

Championing the fight against poverty and disease in Africa has become a fashionable cause for many musicians in Europe and the United States, but some have been criticized for doing too little to promote Africa's home-grown talent.

For Vieux, fighting malaria and struggling for impoverished African cotton farmers to get equal access to world markets are causes close to home which he will be supporting as he tours cities including New York, Los Angeles, London and Dublin.

"Life is tough in Niafunke," he said. "Somebody who cannot find 100 CFA francs (20 cents) to feed themselves cannot find three, four or five thousand to pay for malaria medicine."

Ten percent of revenues from his record sales go back to Niafunke and the Timbuktu region to buy mosquito nets, while the tour is being promoted under the "Fight Malaria" banner.

His clothes are made by young Malian designer Awa Meite, at the forefront of a campaign to support cotton farmers in a nation where 8 out of 10 people lead a rural existence which U.S. farm subsidies threaten to kill off.

Vieux's debut album, which features two tracks recorded with his father just before he died in March 2006, has won widespread praise around the world. A remix by leading DJs is due to hit dance floors this summer on the back of its success.

Despite the growing fame, Vieux is determined to emulate the modesty of his father, who, when he won his first Grammy was quoted as saying: "I don't know what a Grammy means, but if someone has something for me they can come and give it to me here in Niafunke, where I was singing when nobody knew me."

"I may be able to live well but I will never change," Vieux said. "I will always stay like my father."