THE RUNAWAYS (2010, directed by Floria Sigsmondi, 109 minutes, U.S.)

BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC

Thirty-five years after their formation, The Runaways moment has finally arrived.  Widely mocked, derided as puppets and mostly ignored during their musical run between 1975 and 1979, the band’s story is now mythologized for the big screen, starring two of the most popular actresses in Hollywood.  There seems to be an authentic buzz at the possibilities of a Runaways bio and I’ll admit a critical desire to see them knock this hard rockin’ story out of the park. It gives me no pleasure to instead report that we have got another musical biopic that takes a dynamic story and turns it into movie Muzak.

It is particularly frustrating because the film does get so much right.  People were skeptical that the actress from the “True Love Waits” teen vampire flick Twilight (Kristen Stewart) and child star of the nineties, Ms. Dakota Fanning could embody bad girls Joan Jett and Cherie Curry respectively, but damn if their portrayals are not dead-on, getting their posture and their bored-shitless expressions across with believable attitude.  And bug-eyed Michael Shannnon plays the scene-stealing Svengali Kim Fowley with such obnoxious hustler flair you can almost smell his bad breath. Their full-blooded portrayals and the film’s ragged 1970’s look are The Runaways chief charms and they may be enough for the more visually oriented movie-goer to chew on.

Ultimately this style over substance stance just bolsters a complaint that critics have hauled out since the 1980’s, that Floria Sigsmondi is one of those rock video directors who know little about how to tell a story in a feature-length film.  She has all the surfaces right yet the script, on which Sigsmondi receives sole writing credit, never succeeds in defining the scope or scale of the Runaways success. The band crafted five proper albums, played on bills with Van Halen and Cheap Trick, worked their way into the punk scene (befriending The Ramones and The Sex Pistols) and rocked like few other women of their era; yet in this hazy collection of loosely strung together anecdotes The Runaways seems like something crazy that happened over summer vacation.

Worse yet, Sigsmondi somehow misses out on a chance to honor the young women as serious musicians or to show the type of Girl Power camaraderie they possessed. When we meet the young Joan Jett she is plunking around awkwardly on the guitar, and when she later hooks up with drummer Sandy West their enthusiastic banging makes it seem like the sleazy Fowley’s hustling is the necessary element to put their act over.  Later they command the stage like stars (in a complete recreation of this YouTube clip) but we miss the moment where it really comes together and the teens realize they’re on to something big. Cherie’s Behind the Music-style descent instead dominates the story to such an extent that the characters of Lita Ford and the rest of The Runaways are for all intents and purposes cameos in their own story.

In the place of empowered young women we get Cherie acting out by being “too sexy” while Joan (who is Executive Producer) shakes her head in scolding disapproval. The moralistic tone builds as Cherie drowns her woes in drugs and booze and Joan gets to graduate into pop stardom. It’s almost as if Sigsmondi was sent in to remove the guts that made this band so interesting; she even changes Cherie’s identical twin sister Marie into a plain old ordinary sister (Dakota Fanning, cheated out of a chance to play a duel role, must have drooled at the possibilities left dashed). Sigsmondi does work in some of the girl-on-girl jailbait titillation that was always part of their appeal and Fowley gets to spout leering lines like “I am the luckiest dogfucker in space!” yet ultimately The Runaways is a lesson in surfaces that robs a new generation of fans of the band’s still provocative rock and roll heart.

PREVIOUSLY: Herb Denenberg is — as he has been for the better part of his 72 years — mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it any more. “I don’t care if they have the whole lost tribe of Israel working at [the Inquirer’s newsroom at] 400 N. Broad St. I don’t care if there are choirs of angels on every floor of the newsroom. All I care about is what I read in the paper, and that’s what I’m drawing conclusions from,” he says, sitting over Chinese food in Bryn Mawr, his sauteed vegetables and shrimp largely untouched.

Denenberg does not talk with his mouth full and he has been talking more or less nonstop for the last hour. Clearly frustrated that, over the course of lunch, PW has yet to see the light and concede that the Philadelphia Inquirer is a bastion of anti-Semitic bias, he turns up the volume and intensity a few notches. His eyes narrow as he moves his face just inches from that of his interviewer. If there were a meter for righteous indignation, the needle would be buried in the red.

“What I see in the Inquirer is anti-Israeli from A to Z, day in and day out! Headline! Body of the story! Pictures! Captions! Editorials! Op-ed! And you can smell the bias and feel the bias! It stinks and it’s wrong and I wouldn’t get this pissed about it if it wasn’t really bad, and this is really bad!”

The restaurant falls silent. Looking around nervously, Naomi Denenberg, Herb’s wife of 44 years, gently touches her husband’s shoulder, as if to ground him. The effect is instant, and Denenberg pauses and backs away slightly. The look in his eyes is once again friendly and avuncular as he ends his rap on a note of self-deprecating humor. “If nothing else, you know it’s bad when I shell out $2,500 for a full-page ad in the Exponent,” he says with a chuckle. MORE

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CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: David Coleman Headley [pictured, right], a US citizen, could have been sentenced to death by lethal injection for his alleged involvement in the India attacks that left more than 164 dead, including six Americans. But with his guilty plea, prosecutors have agreed not to seek the death penalty or to extradite him to India, Pakistan, or Denmark. The agreement, announced in federal court in Chicago, is contingent on Mr. Headley’s full cooperation with US intelligence officials and prosecutors. Under sentencing guidelines he could receive a prison term of up to life in prison. But his prison time could be reduced based on the value of his cooperation. Headley was among four men named in a 12-count indictment returned by a Chicago grand jury in January for involvement in two plots: the 2008 Mumbai attack, and a separate plot to murder an editor and an illustrator at a Danish newspaper. The Danish paper, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, printed a cartoon depiction of the Prophet Mohammed in September 2005 that many Muslims found highly offensive. That plot was never carried out. Headley’s plea agreement reveals new details about the alleged plot. It says a Pakistan-based militant leader with ties to Al-Qaeda suggested that Europe-based operatives could provide manpower for a suicide attack on the newspaper offices. The leader said once inside the building the attackers should behead newspaper employees and throw their severed heads out the building “to heighten the response from Danish authorities.” According to information in the 33-page indictment, Headley agreed to provide surveillance for the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (Army of the Good). The group has long battled India over claims to the disputed territories of Jammu and Kashmir. MORE

PREVIOUSLY: Khyber Pass Scion Was International Man Of Danger  

PREVIOUSLY: Ex-Khyber Barkeep Charged in Mumbai Attacks

PREVIOUSLY: WHAT A TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE: The Khyber Pass, The Bionic Woman & The Clash Of Civilizations

NEW YORK TIMES: Wearing a green jumpsuit and her hair in cornrows, Ms. LaRose [pictured, above], of Pennsburg, Pa., appeared in court to face a four-count indictment, including charges of conspiring with jihadist fighters and pledging to commit murder in the name of a Muslim holy war. If convicted, she would face a possible life sentence in prison and a $1 million fine. Federal officials said Ms. LaRose, who is white and has blond hair and green eyes, boasted to other jihadists that she could go anywhere undetected. In August, she traveled to Sweden carrying the American passport of her companion, Kurt Gorman, which the authorities say she stole and planned to give to one of her co-conspirators in a plot to kill the artist, Lars Vilks. Last week, the investigation of the plot against Mr. Vilks spread to Ireland with the arrests in the southern city of Waterford of seven Muslims, five of whom were subsequently released. Two others, Ali Charaf Damache, from Algeria, and Abdul Salam al-Jahani, from Libya, were charged on Monday with relatively minor offenses. The authorities said Mr. Damache made a menacing telephone call, while Mr. Jahani was charged with an immigration offense. Both men were scheduled to appear in the Waterford court again on Friday, and lawyers connected with the case say they may face further charges, including conspiracy to murder. One of those released in Ireland was an American woman, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez [pictured, right], 31, from Leadville, Colo. A Muslim convert like Ms. LaRose, Ms. Paulin-Ramirez had been living in Waterford with Mr. Damache since last fall, according to lawyers in Waterford, and is several months pregnant. The lawyers said she left Waterford this week and moved into a Dublin hotel with her 6-year-old son from a previous marriage. Ms. Paulin-Ramirez has been meeting in Dublin with F.B.I. agents, who have urged her to return to the United States for questioning on her connections with Ms. LaRose, Mr. Damache and others in the investigation. MORE

MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL: Alex Chilton, the pop hitmaker, cult icon and Memphis rock iconoclast best known as a member of 1960s pop-soul act the Box Tops and the 1970s power-pop act Big Star, died Wednesday at a hospital in New Orleans. The singer, songwriter and guitarist was 59. “I’m crushed. We’re all just crushed,” said John Fry, owner of Memphis’ Ardent Studios and a longtime friend of Chilton’s. “This sudden death experience is never something that you’re prepared for. And yet it occurs.” Chilton and Big Star had been scheduled to play Saturday as part of the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. MORE

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: One of the biggest names at this year’s SXSW music festival in Austin, Tex. was reunited ’70s power-pop pioneers Big Star, who had a gig scheduled for late this Saturday night. The festival was hit hard by tonight’s sad news that Big Star frontman Alex Chilton has passed away at age 59. Big Star drummer Jody Stephens and bassist Andy Hummel were also scheduled to appear at a Saturday afternoon panel devoted to Big Star’s legacy. Chilton had not been expected to participate at that event; a rep for SXSW says that his bandmates are considering going ahead with the panel, recast as a tribute to their late friend. The rep adds that the status of the band’s Saturday night performance is “still up in the air” at this time.

“Alex Chilton always messed with your head, charming and amazing you while doing so,” SXSW Creative Director Brent Grulke said in a statement. “His gift for melody was second to none, yet he frequently seemed in disdain of that gift. He seemed as troubled by neglect as he did by fame. He wrote the most accessible pop songs that turned into something quite sour on closer reflection. It was impossible to know what he was thinking. But it was always worth pondering, because that’s what a truly great artist makes us do. And make no mistake: Alex Chilton was an artist of the very highest caliber. It’s too early to do much but cry about our loss right now, but he’ll be missed, and missed more as the ages pass and his myth continues to expand — that music isn’t going anywhere. R.I.P. and thank you, friend.” MORE

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ROCK SNOB ENCYCLOPEDIA: BIG STAR. It has been said that the genre of power pop–frail white man-boys with cherry guitars reinvigorating the harmonic convergence of the Beatles, the Beach Boys and the Byrds with the caffeinated rush of youth–is the revenge of the nerds. Big Star pretty much invented the form, which explains the worshipful altars erected to the band in the bedrooms of lonely, disenfranchised melody-makers from Los Angeles to London and points in between.

Though they never came close to fame or fortune in their time, the band continues to hold a sacred place in the cosmology of pure pop, a glittering constellation that remains invisible to the naked mainstream eye. Succeeding generations of pop philosophers and aspiring rock Mozarts pore over the group’s music like biblical scholars hunched over the Dead Sea Scrolls, plumbing the depths of the band’s shadowy history, searching for meaning in Big Star’s immaculate conception and stillborn death.

Big Star was the sound of four Memphis boys caught in the vortex of a time warp, reinterpreting the jangling, three-minute Brit-pop odes to love, youth and the loss of both that framed their formative years, the mid-’60s. Just one problem: It was the early ’70s. They were out of fashion and out of time. Within the band, this disconnect with the pop marketplace would lead to bitter disillusionment, self-destruction and death. But that same damning obscurity would nurture their mythology and become Big Star’s greatest ally, a formaldehyde that would preserve the band’s three full-length albums–No. 1 Record, Radio City and Sister Lovers/Third–as perfect specimens of classic guitar pop. That Big Star’s recorded legacy would go on to inspire countless alternative acts is one of pop history’s cruelest ironies–everyone from R.E.M. to the Replace-ments to Eliott Smith would come to see Big Star as the great missing link between the ’60s and the ’70s and beyond.

There is a dreamy, pre-Raphaelite aura that surrounds the legend of Big Star. Like the doomed, tender-aged beauties in Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel The Virgin Suicides, the tragic career of Big Star would unravel in the autumnal Sunday afternoon sunlight of the early 1970s. The band’s sound and vision hinged on the contrasting sensibilities of songwriters Alex Chilton and Chris Bell. In the gospel of Big Star, Bell is the sacrificial lamb–fragile, doe-eyed and marked for an early death. Chilton is the prodigal son, returning to Memphis after traveling the world, having tasted the bacchanalian pleasures of teen stardom with the Box Tops in the 1960s.

Where Bell was precious and naive, Chilton was nervy and sardonic, but the band’s steady downward spiral would set him on the dark path of personal disintegration–booze, pills, violence and attempted suicide. Years later, he would reinvent himself as an irascible iconoclast and semi-ironic interpreter of obscure soul, R&B and Italian rock ‘n’ roll. Drummer Jody Stephens, the wide-eyed innocent of the group, and bassist Andy Hummel, the sly-grinning sphinx with the glam-rock hair, were the shepherds in the manger, midwives to the miracle birth. In the aftermath of Big Star’s collapse, Stephens would become a born-again Christian, and Hummel would go on to design jet fighters for the military, anonymous and happy behind the wall of secrecy his job would require. – JONATHAN VALANIA

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  September’s Girl

Big Star and the Big Uneasy.

by Jonathan Valania

It’s roughly five 10 years ago and I’m heading over to Alex Chilton’s house, a charming Creole cottage of Civil War vintage he’s in the midst of restoring. Chilton is a forbidding totem of American music with a formidable pedigree: white soul prodigy; guiding light of Big Star; progenitor of power-pop purity, pill-addled punk and swampy garage blooze; indie’s aging princeling of white failure. He’s a musician’s musician, and each entry on his resume has spun off countless imitators and innovators. He got his house for a song, he tells me, because it’s located in one of the Big Easy’s more depleted neighborhoods. He’d warned me in advance that cab drivers were reluctant to venture there during the day and wouldn’t even consider it after dark.

As the cab slows at a stop sign, two men in tracksuits approach and the driver waves them off, slamming the locks down and rolling up the windows. I see the suspicion in his eyes as he shoots daggers at me in the rearview mirror. What business would a white boy have here other than scoring drugs?

“Why are you going here?” he demands.

“I’m going to visit Alex Chilton. Do you know of him?”

The cabbie ignores me. As the sun dips below the skyline, I begin to wonder how I’m going to get back to my hotel.

“Will you come back and get me later on?” I ask.

“Hell no!”

When we finally get to Chilton’s house, it looks like a beached tugboat in the weeds. Bars cover the doors and windows. Once inside I tell Chilton about the cabbie’s uneasiness.

“Well, one of them did get shot down the street a month ago,” he says straight-faced, before turning indignant, adding, “But it’s broad daylight! What a pussy!”

Chilton is the only white person in the neighborhood, he confirms, though that could soon change. A Caucasian couple is looking to buy the place across the street.

“There goes the neighborhood,” he deadpans. “I’ve always lived in black neighborhoods. I’ve always related to black people more than white people. If I lived in a white neighborhood, all my neighbors would be washing their BMWs and tending to the garden, and I can’t really relate to that.”

Chilton said something else to me that day that would become evident in the wake of the recent flood and the diaspora that followed: “In the South they don’t care how close the black man gets as long as he doesn’t get too big. In the North they don’t care how big the black man gets as long as he doesn’t get too close.”

Next week sees the release of In Space by a reconstituted Big Star, effectively ending a 27-year hiatus and a looming power-pop legend that has grown in that time. In Space doesn’t really work as a Big Star record, with only a few tracks even remotely connected to #1 Record or Radio City in texture and tenor. But with its giddy forays into white soul, sock-hop bop, surf rock and jazzy splatter, it’s a pretty darn good Alex Chilton record.

Chilton stayed home to ride out Katrina and wound up trapped in his house for a week. The water came up only to his front step, but evacuation was deemed too risky for even this fearless straddler of racial boundaries as New Orleans devolved into a sunken pirate ship. Fortunately, a rescue boat finally spotted the white sheet he’d hung out his window, and Chilton was delivered from evil.

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Forever to be known as the guiding light in Big Star’s twinkling constellation of pure pop, Alex Chilton would probably have it any other way. It’s unlikely Chilton will ever again give power-pop fetishists what they crave so hungrily: more of the same. The irascible singer/songwriter cipher has spent the past 33 years confounding people’s expectations, including his own. Nobody figured a 16-year-old white kid could sing with the soulful growl he wielded during his tenure with the Box Tops in the ’60s. Big Star’s feathery weave of the Beatles and the Byrds was hardly par for the course in the shaggy dog days of the early ’70s, which, in part, explains why the band never really sold any records before disbanding. And from the late ’70s onward, his solo career zigs, sometimes brilliantly, when his audience zags. In the ’90s he pretty much dispensed with songwriting altogether, settling into the role of semi-ironic interpreter of obscure soul, R&B, jazz and Italian rock ‘n’ roll nuggets. Last year’s Set (Bar/None) continues this trend–from the honky tonk rhumba of “Single Again” to the lipsmacking soul of “Oogum Boogum” and the reefer hoodoo of “You’s a Viper”–but there is no question that the material is delivered with an abiding love for the source material. And “Never Found a Girl” and “Lipstick Traces” are as catchy as anything Chilton has done, with the possible exception of “The Letter” or “September Gurls.” The long-suffering faithful will be glad to hear that Chilton is writing again, so stay tuned. – JONATHAN VALANIA

ON THE COVER

PW: G.W. Miller holds a mirror up to the Philadelphia sporting scene and takes a look at both the dogged loyalty of the city’s fans and the identity crisis they now face as a result of - gasp - success. The Phillies’ 2008 ascent to World (Fucking) Champions status presented a paradigm shift, and the Fightins’ recent acquisition of power pitcher Roy Halladay may have them stocked for years to come. How can we be expected to take all this unexpected achievement?

After decades of coming up short in every major sport, all of the sudden Philadelphia is a destination—a town of, well, winners. It’s strange to even say that. The impact of two National League pennants and one World Championship title is amazing.

“I’m excited to play in the postseason and ultimately win a World Series,” Halladay confidently says to the 100 people in the room. “Hopefully, we’ll do it a few times.”

If that actually happens, you have to wonder if Philadelphia sports fans will ever be the same again.

When people try to be nice about it, they say we’re passionate fans. But the reality is that we are irascible, caustic, cynical and temperamental. We are intensely knowledgeable about our teams, and we take every little slight personally–like when Lower Merion product Kobe Bryant showed up at a Dodgers playoff game against the Phillies in October, flashed “LA” gestures with his hands, and said on national television that he grew up rooting for the Mets. As if we didn’t hate him enough after the Lakers star muttered that he was “coming to Philly to cut out their hearts” during the 2001 NBA Finals … against the Sixers.

Miller enlists Inky sports scribe Bill Lyon and higher-ups with various sports franchises to account both for the years of struggles and the string of successes. Even with the Phillies poised for a pennant run once again, though, we’re not likely to see signs saying “I promise never to boo again.” We’re not going soft: rivalries are only going to grow more fierce as our teams seek to hold onto the top spots. How many days til the home opener?

CP: Isaiah Thompson digs into the details behind the racial violence at South Philadelphia High School that gave the school district a black eye alongside those on the faces of numerous Asian-American students. Thompson presents the testimony of a Vietnamese student, identified as “Guy,” who ended up suspended and expelled for, it seems, simply coming forward. In light of what Guy has already been through at the hands of his peers, this is adding-insult-to-injury in a huge way.

One of Guy’s friends managed to escape; Guy wasn’t so fortunate. When he made his break, he lost his shoe. As he reached down to grab it, he was punched in the head from behind. He says he swung his shoe blindly, connecting with someone, he thinks — though he’s not sure. He tried to flee again, only to be overtaken by another, smaller group of assailants. He was punched in the head again, and after he fell forward, he says, four males pummeled him with their fists. They did not stop until an employee of a nearby Walgreens chased the attackers away. Guy limped home with the help of his friends. Along the way, he threw up. By the time he got home, the side of his face was badly bruised.

His story is largely supported by testimony included in Giles’ report — but only as one possible version of what happened. In another iteration, which is also described in that report, Guy is alleged to have confronted the African-American student in the hallway and been among the Vietnamese aggressors who “jumped” a “crippled/disabled African-American student.” He is also alleged to have been part of a street gang.

Ackerman picked up the latter version and ran with it, and the idea of the Vietnamese instigators who beat up a disabled black student the day before the Dec. 3 chaos became the de facto official story. (She and other school officials declined to be interviewed for this story.) Calling the evidence that supports this theory of the events of Dec. 2 “flimsy” would be generous. The notion of Guy-as-instigator, according to Giles’ report, is largely based on a single incident report filed that day by school police officers. Although Giles’ report says that both the black and Asian students involved in that incident were interviewed, the officers’ incident report contains only interviews with the two African-American males who were detained that afternoon. Guy says the school police never spoke to him or his friends.

The Giles report - commissioned, it’s noted, by the school district for nearly a hundred thou - is given a thorough going-over, and the entanglements surrounding Guy’s suspension for “disrupting the school” and a notification so delayed that he missed his chance to appeal it don’t in any way pass the smell test. At every opportunity, it seems like the School District has tried to shift blame and save face. A culture of violence is tough to overcome, but a culture of covering-up isn’t the answer.

INSIDE THE BOOK

PW: Sichuan cuisine: Hot shit. Starlet praises P-Diddy: Is that guy still around? Gerrymander: A word coined to reminder us that politicians are really slimy amphibians. Striking a blow against hit-and-run.

CP: This is madness. No, this is BASKETBALL! Big stars from a small stage. Gimme shelter: Domestic abuse victims fall through the cracks. Cheers to a better, beery future.

WINNER: Another crucial piece of reporting from CP’s Isaiah Thompson. “Journalist Hero” might never take off as a video game, but if it does, I want him in it. CP takes it.

TINA FEY: The idea of the photo shoot is something like my wild night out. The irony being that I don’t do that. I got an e-mail [from Esquire] with a list of the potential setups, and my e-mail back was like, Well, I need to decline being handcuffed to a bed. I won’t straddle anyone. I won’t make out with a cop. There are certain things, I totally get them as a premise. And they’re all good fun, and if I were a young single model, they would be appropriate, but, you know, I’m a mom. And my kid’s going to find this someday. I don’t want to be handcuffed to a bed in Esquire. MORE

The Naval Yard, 1:16 PM by JEFF FUSCO

BBC: BBC World Service DJ Charlie Gillett has died after a long illness, aged 68. Known as a champion of world music, the Lancashire-born broadcaster passed away on Wednesday morning, his official website confirmed. The author and publisher had contracted a disease of the autoimmune system, and last week suffered a heart attack. Gillett is credited with discovering Dire Straits in 1976 after playing Sultans of Swing from their demo tape on his Radio London show Honky Tonk. ‘Sorely missed’ He also wrote an acclaimed history of rock’n’roll, The Sound of the City, in the 1970s. World Service director Peter Horrocks said he was an inspiration whose spirit of adventure and passion for the rich diversity of global music opened the ears of the world. “His broadcasts brought together music and radio fans from far flung corners of the globe,” he said. “His postbag was one of the biggest, most affectionate and diverse in Bush House, which confirmed his special place in listener’s lives. He was a very special broadcaster and he will be sorely missed.” MORE

VANCOUVER SUN: He also wrote what is widely acclaimed as the first serious history of pop music, The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll, The book was adapted from his Master’s thesis written at Columbia University. The volume was well-received critically and propelled Gillett to continue his journalism for several high-profile American and British magazines. It received excellent reviews in both Time magazine and The New York Times and enabled Gillett to further his music journalism career and to write a second book, Making Tracks. He wrote for a variety of music magazines including Rolling Stone and New Musical Express and contributed to The Observer. MORE

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL: Let It Rock’s launch in 1972 coincided with “the first era of post-modernism in pop,” as the late great Ian MacDonald told me in my music press history In Their Own Write. “Music started to be conscious of itself and look back and begin to make syntheses and style references and be ironic.” Of course, the collective which founded the publication - Simon Frith, Charlie Gillett, Phil Hardy, Gary Herman, Ian Hoare and Dave Laing  - were riding the zeitgeist;  in fashion a stylistic revolution was being sparked by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s  investigations into 50s musical subcultures at their King’s Road shop of the very same name, while visual artists such as Barney were enthusiastically plundering the recent history of art and commercial design to reinvigorate the world of graphics. MORE

RELATED: “There are going to be many people who will find they have three copies of this album by the end of this year,” says the esteemed English broadcaster and critic, Charlie Gillett. “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’.” Right now it feels like the defining album in a long and notable career — an album already gone nuclear in France and looking set to charm and capture audiences around the world. The album is ‘Dimanche à Bamako’  (‘Sunday in Bamako’) by the Malian duo of Amadou & Mariam. Produced by and featuring the celebrated Manu Chao, ‘Dimanche à Bamako’ has propelled Amadou & Mariam high into the French charts, along the way winning both a gold disc and a prestigious Les Victoires de la Musique award –- the French equivalent of the Grammys. Such phenomenal success cements the awesome reputation that Amadou & Mariam have built throughout West Africa. They have known each other for 28 years, their personal and professional lives long since intertwined. Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia first came together in 1977. Both are blind and they met at the Institute for the Young Blind in Bamako, the capital of Mali, where Amadou and Mariam were part of the Institute’s Eclipse Orchestra. MORE