It's not really that much of a stretch to say that Ali Farka Toure completely changed my musical life and direction. It all kind of started in the mid 90's, more or less a continuation of what I wrote about within the Bill Frisell "Good Dog, Happy Man" entry. Around this time, after venturing into guitar based jazz and other areas, another storm was brewing internally for me: world music. I would say that this pretty much started with my minor interest in Kitaro, someone who straddled the line between New Age and World in general. When you're really into music, one artist tends to forge a path to another, and then another, and the next thing you know you're at a doorstep that you would have never imagined. Another album that helped get me to that doorway was Peter Gabriel's "Passion" instrumental album from the late 80's, not to mention most of Gabriel's work since his third solo release. Gabriel put an incredible amount of effort...
A list of albums in no specific order that influenced my life and musical creation