Chieftains

   
Artist: Chieftains

   Genre(s): 
Celtic
   

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Discography:


   
 The Wide World Over: A 40 Year Celebration

   Year: 2002   
Tracks: 19

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The original traditional Irish folk band, as far as anyone world Health Organization came of eld in the 1970s or eighties is interested, is the Chieftains. Their sound, reinforced largely on Paddy Moloney's pipes, is transcendental, well-nigh entirely instrumental, and seems as though it comes out of another age of man's history. That they became an outside phenomenon in the '70s and '80s is testament to their virtuoso musicianship.


The Chieftains were number 1 formed in Dublin during 1963, as a semipro outfit, from the ranks of the top folk musicians in Ireland. Until that time, and for some age subsequently, the world's (and fifty-fifty Ireland's) perceptual experience of Irish folk songs was rooted in either the good-natured boisterousness and topicality of acts of the Apostles such as the Irish Rovers or Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers, or the sentimentality of Mary O'Hara. That began to change in Ireland with the advent of Ceoltoiri Cualann, a chemical group formed from the ranks of the best traditional Irish musicians by a composer named Sean Ó Riada, wHO hailed from County Cork. Ceoltoiri Cualann, which specialised in instrumental music, stripped away the pop music inflections from Irish music -- the dances were played with a lifelike lilt and vacate that came from deep inside the music's origins, and the pose, stripped of their worst advanced inflections, came crossways with even greater poignance than anyone had recognized them for in decades, and maybe centuries. Tempos were changed in midsong, from reel to polka to jig to slow airwave and back once again.


Paddy Moloney came out of Ceoltoiri Cualann to institute the Chieftains in 1963, seeking to carry this work several steps further. The earliest recorded personification of the group consisted of Moloney (pipes), Sean Potts (tin can whistle), Martin Fay (fiddle), David Fallon (bodhran), Mick Tubridy (champagne flute, concertina), and Ó Riada. They were a succeeder virtually from the start, their music weaving a spell about audiences in Ireland and later in England, where they cursorily became popular as both a performing and recording act -- the only thing holding them endorse was the conclusion by the members to persist a semipro, part-time supporting players until the early '70s. Their showtime quadruplet albums, cattle ranch over a period from 1965 through 1973, were to begin with uncommitted only when from the Claddagh pronounce in Ireland, only were later picked up by Island Records for release in England and America in 1976, subsequently the group had achieved international celebrity.


The 1970s proverb the group break great in America. A new, jr. generation of Irish-American listeners, world Health Organization enjoyed kinsfolk music and whose cultural and musical tastes weren't limited to songs about "the troubles" (i.e., England), had already begun discovering the Chieftains' music in the early to mid-'70s. By that time, the group had elective to go professional, and to expand its lineup. Ó Riada and Fallon left afterward the first record album, and Peadar Mercier (bodhran) and Sean Keane (fiddle) united with the second base. Following the recording of Chieftains 4, they'd added Ronnie McShane (percussion section) and Derek Bell (harmonica, oboe, timpan), a classically trained musician. Bell's harmonica lententide the group's levelheaded a last level of elegance and nip.


The group's prominent breakthrough in America, however, occurred when they provided the music for Stanley Kubrick's 1975 pic, Barry Lyndon. The film itself wasn't a hit, just the Chieftains were, particularly unitary track called "Women of Ireland," which began acquiring played heavily on FM progressive stone stations, and even managed to catch onto the play lists of some Top 40 stations. Suddenly, the Chieftains were hot in America, and a U.S. enlistment and a series of performances on television -- specially the network good morning news/feature shows -- brought them into demand.


By that time, Island Records had contracted to release both the group's latest album, Chieftains 5, and their four-spot previous records in England and America. With their newfound audience, Chieftains records started approach out every twelvemonth instead of every iI or three days -- Bonaparte's Retreat in 1976, Chieftains Live in 1977, and Chieftains 7, 8, and 9 in 1978, 1979, and 1980, respectively, although for their U.S. releases, from 1977 through 1980, they abandoned Island Records in favor of Columbia Records. Ever since the dawn of the CD earned run average, their music has been available on pack disk from Shanachie Records, while their more than recent act upon has shown up on the BMG pronounce, on both compress phonograph recording and home video recording. The latter have included a Christmas concert and a mixed-ensemble public presentation interweaving the group with orchestras, American kinsfolk and commonwealth musicians, and rock musicians, and an record album (Irish Gaelic Heartbeat, 1988) recorded with Irish-born R&B screecher Van Morrison. Additionally, the group has been engaged steadily for picture show work.


Since the late '70s, the group's recordings have settled into an effective just non fully divine stage of creative thinking. The band has kept its levelheaded sweet with the occasional accession of newfangled members and a lookup for sounds beyond the boundaries of Ireland -- as aloof as Spain -- as sources for its music.


In 2003, prospicient time mouth harp player Derek Bell passed away piece on tour in Phoenix, AZ. The group, wHO carry on to toy and disk, released a tribute in 2005 called Live in Dublin.