Roland Tchakounté

American blues continues to be combined with African customs and sung in the Bamileke language by Cameroon-born and France-based guitarist/vocalist Roland Tchakounté. In the beginning affected by R&B performers, including Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Question, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and Marvin Gaye, Tchakounté was attracted to the music’s origins after “finding” the blues and boogie music of late-bluesman John Lee Hooker. The knowledge was so serious that, as he described throughout a 1999 interview, “I instantly brought collectively American blues as well as the African blues — both of these musics experienced the same resource. I, thus, experienced discovered my method.” Tchakounté — who also cites the Moving Rocks, Iggy Pop, Bruce Springsteen, and Vehicle Morrison as affects — analyzed African percussion before switching to your guitar. After playing bass and performing for some local rings, he released his solo profession in the middle-’90s. Following a launch of his self-produced, debut single recording Afro Blues in 1999, he toured having a band that presented French guitarist Jean-Pierre Vimont, bassist Thierry Mothier, keyboards participant Christian Rousset, and drummer Jean Luc Deshayes.