Music |
Amadou & Mariam: Dimanche a Bamako
By
Published: Mar 07, 2023
Category:
World
Do you like music that makes you happy?
I don’t mean moderately happy, 7.5 on a scale of 10, isn’t it a great day happy, kind of sort of happy.
I mean ecstatic, get up and dance happy, throw caution to the winds and kiss a stranger happy, pump up the volume and wake your neighbors happy, see yourself realizing all your dreams happy.
That happiness is rarely commercially available. It is here. Weary of hype? Let me Make the Case.
Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia are from Mali. They met in the 1970s, married in 1980, and started performing together. Like their fellow musicians from Mali — I’m thinking of Ali Farka Toure and Boubacar Traoré — they started with their country’s version of the blues. Along the way, they went international and borrowed from cultures as diverse as Cuba and France. And they became very popular indeed.
Small fact: They’re blind. Both of them. And possessed of the unusual joy that is the special province of some of the unsighted.
In 2003, Amadou and Mariam hooked up with Manu Chao. This is major, for Chao is a world music god. He not only produced “Dimanche a Bamako,” he co-authored some of the songs, and sang and played guitar as well. But it’s as a producer that he shines brightest. Almost every song has a killer beat, and on top of that he layers street sounds, harmonies from anywhere (this CD starts with a cross between 1960s hootenany and 1950s doo-wop), and on top of all that are Amadou and Mariam. To read my review of “Folila,” click here. To read my review of “Welcome to Mali,” click here. To buy “Dimanche a Bamako” from Amazon, click here.]
“Dimanche à Bamako” was a huge hit in France, where it won a Les Victoires de la Musique award (the French Grammy). Just from “La Réalité,”I can understand why. [To watch the video — best at significant volume or on headphones — click here.]
The music has police whistles, xylophone, sirens, cheering crowds, a Tex-Mex organ and a beat that pounds disco right through the wall into reggae’s yard. And the lyrics (in French) have a brilliantly calibrated mix of rebel politics, weary philosophy and, finally, a command to get out of the chair:
Ups and downs
It is life in this world
Sad reality
While some are being born
Others are dying
And while some are laughing others are crying
Ups and downs
It is life in this world
Sad reality
Some have work while others are out of work
Then it must be that while some are sleeping
Others are keeping the watch
It is the sad reality
But…let us dance together
Exciting? Thrilling! As the distinguished English critic Charlie Gillett has written, “There are going to be many people who will find they have three copies of this album by the end of this year: one that they bought themselves, the other two given by people who’ll say, ‘I heard this and thought this is the kind of thing you like.’ And there will be people who will themselves have bought three or four copies to give to friends, saying, ‘I know you’ve sworn you’ll never like an album not in English, but this is the one to win you over.'”
I’ll say it more bluntly: This is pure joy, suitable for every occasion. To turn away from “Dimanche a Bamako” is to choose to live a diminished life. I beg you: Don’t miss this one.
PERSONAL STORY
Josh Ritter and I had some mail. We decided to meet for coffee. I brought him a present: this CD. Josh laughed. “When I was in Paris, in cab after cab, this was the music they were listening to.”
