Wale Liniger

After several years teaching at secondary school, the Swiss musician Walter «Wale» Liniger emigrated to the American South in 1982. During his work at the Blues Archive of the University of Mississippi (1984–1993) he did not only research in an academic setting — he also came to know many exponents of traditional Mississippi blues personally. Especially formative was his long collaboration with Delta blues master James Son Thomas, which is also mentioned in Gérard Herzhaft's Encyclopédie du Blues.

Until 1993 Wale Liniger lived in Columbia, South Carolina, where he taught as a professor at the University of South Carolina. Alongside this he continued his musical work and maintained long friendships with important musicians of the traditional American folk and blues scene.

As a Swiss-American he has for many years travelled between two cultures with voice, guitar and harmonica. His performances connect personal experience with questions of cultural translation, emigration and exile — themes that have always found expression in the blues. In doing so he conveys to his audience not only the history of the blues, but above all its emotional power and vitality.

Wale Liniger