Fairly merely, The Chieftains are the world’s principal ambassadors of Irish music. The band, shaped in 1962 by Paddy Moloney to play conventional Irish tunes that celebrated his homeland’s folks tradition, have launched greater than 40 albums, received six Grammy awards, and performed non-public reveals on the White Home and the Vatican Metropolis. The Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger hailed their “mind-boggling” contribution to the historical past of well-liked music. President Joe Biden has described them as his favourite band.
The Chieftains have labored with rock and pop stars, opera singers, and classical and folks musicians from world wide. Additionally they have a distinguished legacy of soundtrack work, together with the songs they contributed to the Oscar-winning soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 film Barry Lyndon. “You could call the music we play the classical music of Ireland,” stated Dubliner Moloney, who handed away in October 2021 on the age of 83. Beneath we provide a range – and it may well solely be that, given the depth of their unimaginable physique of labor – of the perfect tracks by The Chieftains.
Take heed to Chronicles: 60 years of The Chieftains right here.
Titans of conventional music
It’s no exaggeration to say The Chieftains reinvented conventional Irish music on a global scale, fulfilling Moloney’s imaginative and prescient of popularizing the jigs, reels, polkas, and lovely gradual melodic airs he grew up having fun with as a teen. Moloney, who began out taking part in with a band known as Ceoltóirí Chualann, was 24 when he gathered a bunch of gamers collectively in Dublin in 1962, semi-professional musicians who would later evolve into The Chieftains. The band’s identify was impressed by his good friend, Irish poet John Montague, and his 1964 quick story assortment Dying of a Chieftain.
That was the yr The Chieftains launched their first album on Garech Browne’s Claddagh Data. They’d go on to report dozens of information for the label, and among the band’s greatest instrumental tracks have been recorded there, together with the rollicking reel “Boil The Breakfast Early,” from the 1979 album The Chieftains 9: Boil The Breakfast Early, the primary of their albums to function the flute taking part in of Matt Molloy.
The beautiful jig “If I Had Maggie in the Wood” (from Chieftains 8), the romantic air “Tabhair dom do Lamh” (from Chieftains 5), and the polka “Sweeney’s Polka” (from Chieftains 2) are good examples of their imaginative, progressive interpretations of conventional songs. Top-of-the-line examples of this method is the instrumental “Mná na hÉireann” (which interprets as “women of Ireland”), which appeared on the 1973 album The Chieftains 4, the primary of their information to function Derek Bell on harp. It was this music that introduced them to the eye of acclaimed director Stanley Kubrick.
Eire’s virtuoso musicians
Though Bell as soon as quipped that The Chieftains “have the look about us of a group of retired bankers,” their unshowy picture has all the time belied a group of supremely gifted musicians. Bell, who was given the nickname “Ding Dong” by the band, was a wizard on a variety of devices, together with the Celtic harp, oboe, piano, electrical keyboard, English horn, and hammered dulcimer. Like Bell, fiddler and founding member Martin Fay was classically skilled. Seán Keane, who joined the band in 1968, was an all-Eire fiddle champion. Michael Tubridy excelled on the concertina, tin whistle, and flute.
Moloney was not solely a superb artist on the bellows-blown instrument generally known as the uilleann pipes, however he additionally performed different Gaelic devices together with the bodhrán, the tin whistle, and button accordion. In 1969, his band took “The Foxhunt,” which had beforehand been generally known as a piper’s tune, and created the definitive full-band model. The tune, organized by Moloney, was an essential milestone. By the point of 1973’s The Chieftains 4, Moloney was creating bold compositions comparable to “The Battle of Aughrim.” As he was writing the music, Moloney visited the location of the Seventeenth-century battle in Galway, the place practically 7,000 individuals have been killed. “The whole picture of the battle started to evolve in my mind like a vision… I could see the bloody battlefields and all the great patriots lying dead and then it all started coming together for me,” Moloney recalled in The Chieftains: The Authorised Biography.
The Chieftains have all the time been consummate reside performers and a few of their live performance albums, together with 1976’s Chieftains Dwell album, recorded on the Symphony Corridor in Boston and the Massey Corridor in Toronto, provides a style of the power and talent they dropped at their reveals. That album included a very transferring instrumental model of “Carrickfergus.” That tour sealed their status in America and information of their expertise continued to unfold. “These guys are the real deal,” stated New Orleans pianist Dr. John in 1995.
The Chieftains’ sense of journey
The Chieftains have excelled at breaking down musical obstacles all through their profession, taking Irish music to the farthest components of the world. They have been the primary Western musicians to carry out on the Nice Wall of China; they have been a part of Roger Waters’ historic The Wall efficiency in Berlin in 1990; they have been the primary ensemble to carry out a live performance within the Capitol Constructing in Washington D.C. In 2010, Molloy’s prized E-flat flute was performed in house by NASA astronaut Cady Coleman.
Throughout that 1983 tour of China, The Chieftains included a 20-minute jam session with native musicians at each live performance. Their infectious appreciation of Chinese language music is proven within the monitor “Full of Joy,” on which bodhrán participant Kevin Conneff performed the Chinese language gong. On The Chieftains 5, Bell launched the medieval tiompán to The Chieftains sound for the primary time, on Moloney’s composition “Tiompán Reel.” That album, which was launched in America by Island Data, additionally featured Breton music for the primary time, with the haunting “Ceol Bhriotánach.”
One other instance of their distinctive potential to play and organize tunes that carry out the perfect of Irish and abroad music was Moloney’s stirring 11-minute tune “Galacian Overture.” The monitor was the spotlight of Santiago, a Grammy-winning album that’s devoted to the standard music of Spain’s Galicia area. Ry Cooder, who guested on the album, as soon as joked, “I swear Paddy thinks all the music in the world originally came from Ireland.”
The Chieftains’ collaborations
Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, Nanci Griffith, Jackson Browne, Artwork Garfunkel, Béla Fleck, Bonnie Raitt, Madonna, Diana Krall, Marianne Faithfull, Tom Jones, Alison Krauss, Sinéad O’Connor, John Williams, James Galway, and Luciano Pavarotti have one factor in frequent: all of them jumped on the likelihood to report with The Chieftains.
Certainly one of The Chieftains most interesting instrumental unions was with Ry Cooder, on an impressive model of “Dunmore Lassies,” a monitor from their hit album The Lengthy Black Veil. The band have been fully instrumental till 1976’s The Chieftains 6: Bonaparte’s Retreat, when the beautiful title monitor “Bonaparte’s Retreat” featured 17-year-old singer Dolores Keane, from the band De Dannan. Their potential to offer accompaniment for vocalists has since turn out to be a function of a few of their greatest work, together with the 1988 album Irish Heartbeat, that includes 10 songs with Van Morrison. The entire album, which features a rousing model of “I’ll Tell Me Ma,” is a triumph.
The Chieftains have additionally excelled at working with nation and western musicians, together with Patty Griffin, Lyle Lovett, John Prine, Chet Atkins, and Rosanne Money. Certainly one of their greatest Nashville collaborations was with Ricky Skaggs on a zestful model of “Wabash Cannonball.” The opening of that music was tailored from their music “Morning Dew,” which got here on Chieftains 4, sleeve notes for which have been penned by Peter Sellers, the celebrated comic and film star.
Stars of the massive display
Whether or not it’s dance tunes to elevate your spirits, or songs to tug at your heartstrings, The Chieftains have excelled at creating atmospheric music. It’s no shock that these Irish folks musicians have been in big demand for Hollywood soundtracks and tv applications. In addition to their work for Kubrick, they wrote and carried out music for the 1979 film Tristan and Isolde, starring Richard Burton. The beautiful theme tune “Tristan and Isolde,” on which Moloney blended the uilleann pipes with a symphony orchestra, is a surprising piece of music. One other movie spotlight is their model of “O’Sullivan’s March,” which initially appeared on 1977’s The Chieftains 7, and which they recorded anew for 1995’s Rob Roy, starring Liam Neeson.
In 1982, Moloney was commissioned to compose the rating for the Canadian western film The Gray Fox, a couple of well-known stagecoach robber. Moloney’s luxurious melodies labored brilliantly with the photographs of outdated trains transferring by means of the mountains. The rating, which included “The Main Theme from The Grey Fox,” a tune Moloney tailored from his composition “Sea Image,” received a Genie Award, the Canadian equal of an Academy Award.
Music from The Chieftains has additionally appeared on hit movies comparable to The Gangs of New York, Circle of Associates, Far and Away, and 1990’s Treasure Island, which included the spirited “Treasure Cave,” a music that’s typically carried out reside. They even made a foray into the world of cartoons, with tunes for The Tailor of Gloucester, a traditional English kids’s story, narrated by Meryl Streep.
Regardless of the setting, regardless of the model of music, The Chieftains are merely peerless. They may eternally be the world’s best-loved Irish folks band.
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