THE CONNECTION between blues music and the African continent and how African slaves carried their music to the Americas has been well documented for almost a century, notably in Paul Oliver's groundbreaking book The Story of the Blues.

He traced the music created by slaves through “field hollers,” sung to back-breaking work in cotton fields and lumber camps, through to touring minstrel shows and onto the music we now know as the blues. DJ Charlie Gillett, broadcaster Andy Kershaw and Nick Gold at World Circuit Records in the 1990s also played a part in in bringing blues culture to a wider Western audience.

The 1990 release of Ali Farka Toure’s The River — followed by albums he made with US artists Taj Mahal and later Ry Cooder — established the affinity he and the Malian kora player Toumani Diabate had with the blues, notably with the music of John Lee Hooker and the musicians of the Mississippi hill country.