Blowing the dust off the cartridge to plug the ‘Tracks‘ format wherein I spotlight a particular song that stands out in my mental jukebox and sits amongst my favourites back into action. Are these favourite songs? I suppose so. If one of those folks in Hollywood could finally settle on a suitable compensation package for me, these tunes would no doubt occupy at least a side or two of the soundtrack to my life’s movie.

Why ‘Beaux Dimanches’ by Amadou & Mariam? It’s hard to to recall now exactly when this song floated into the mix but I know that it’s probably post 2008. Even before I started rebuilding and improving on my French enough to get to grips with the lyrics I was hooked – the slinky Mali-blues guitar lines, the beat, the sheer joy of it: there’s no way for me to hear this and not feel uplifted.

Amadou & Mariam are a musical duo from Mali. The couple, born in the country’s capital Bamako, began playing together in the 1980s, working their way up from more minimal arrangements of guitar and voice before perfecting their blend of rock guitar, Mali blues and about every kind of world-music vibe you could throw a hat at to form their own take on Afro-Blues as they moved from Mali to Paris via the Ivory Coast building up wider and wider audiences and fans like Stevie Wonder and Manu Chao. It’s a heady, delicious mix that vibes just right with me.

Both Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia are blind. Amadou lost his sight when he was 16, Mariam having lost hers at age 5 thanks to an untreated case of the measles. They met at Mali’s Institute for the Young Blind and, along with going on to form their musical partnership, would go on to marry and have three children.

It was Chao that produced their 2004 album Dimanche à Bamako (Sunday in Bamako) from which this track is taken. ‘Beaux Dimanches’ (Beautiful Sundays) is a joyous song about weddings in the capital -‘Les dimanches à Bamako c’est le jour de mariage’ – suitably upbeat and coloured with references to Malain traditions.

Dimanche à Bamako was the record that bought the duo to the attention of the world. From here they’d record the anthem for the 2006 World Cup, play major festivals like Coachella, Latitude and Lollapalooza and play with folks like David Gilmour, that knob from Blur (who’d also have a hand in producing their next record) and Beth Orton while touring with the likes of Coldplay and U2. They have continued to put out a wonderful album every few years. 2012’s Folia in particular gets many a spin in the motor and improves every drive when it does. When Matt Groening curated the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in 2010 he chose Amadou & Mariam to close it.