- published: 18 Apr 2011
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Tinariwen (Tamashek-Berber: ⵜⵏⵔⵓⵏ, ⵜⵉⵏⵉⵔⵉ, tinariwén "deserts", plural of ténéré "desert") is a band of Tuareg-Berber musicians from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali. The band was formed around 1979 in refugee camps in Libya but returned to Mali after a cease-fire in the 1990s. The group first started to gain a following outside the Sahara region in 2001, with the release of The Radio Tisdas Sessions, and the performances at Festival au Désert in Mali and at the Roskilde festival in Denmark. Their popularity rose internationally with the release of the critically acclaimed Aman Iman in 2007. Tinariwen's biography has variously been described as "the most compelling of any band" (Songlines), "the most rock'n'roll of them all" (The Irish Times), "hard-bitten" (Slate.com), and "dramatic" (The Independent).[citation needed]
The band released their fifth album Tassili on August 30, 2011. The album later won the Award for Best World Music Album at the 54th Grammy Awards.
Tinariwen was founded by Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, who at age four witnessed the execution of his father (a Tuareg rebel) during a 1963 uprising in Mali. As a child he saw a western film in which a cowboy played a guitar. Ag Alhabib built his own guitar out of a tin can, a stick and bicycle brake wire. He started to play old Tuareg and modern Arabic pop tunes.[citation needed] Ag Alhabib first lived in refugee camps and later resided with other Tuareg exiles in Libya and Algeria.
Carlos Augusto Alves Santana (born July 20, 1947) is a Mexican and American rock guitarist. Santana became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered rock, Latin music and jazz fusion. The band's sound featured his melodic, blues-based guitar lines set against Latin and African rhythms featuring percussion instruments such as timbales and congas not generally heard in rock music. Santana continued to work in these forms over the following decades. He experienced a resurgence of popularity and critical acclaim in the late 1990s. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine listed Santana at number 15 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. He has won 10 Grammy Awards and 3 Latin Grammy Awards.
Santana was born in Autlán de Navarro, Jalisco, Mexico. Carlos learned to play the violin at age five and the guitar at age eight. His younger brother, Jorge Santana, would also become a professional guitarist. Young Carlos was heavily influenced by Ritchie Valens at a time when there were very few Latinos in American rock and pop music. The family moved from Autlán de Navarro to Tijuana In La Colonia Libertad, the city on Mexico's border with California, and then San Francisco. Carlos stayed in Tijuana but joined his family in San Francisco later and graduated from James Lick Middle School and Mission High School there. He graduated from Mission High in 1965. Carlos was accepted into the California State University, Northridge and Humboldt State University, but turned down both of the offers. Javier Bátiz, a famous guitarist from Tijuana, was said to have been Carlos's guitar teacher who taught him to play a different style of guitar soloing. After learning Javier Batiz's techniques, Santana would make them his own as well.