paddy moloney recently described him as, the seventh member of the Chieftains . And although 25-year-old Galician piper Carlos Nunez is more than happy to fill that role, there is much more to this unlikely world music virtuoso than meets the eye.
With his dark good looks and snappy sartorial style, he could quite conceivably become a successful name in his own right the LA Times even went so far as to say that, if it was possible to become a pop star playing the bagpipes, Nunez could be the man to do it. Already Nunez has played with The Who, among many others, but his obvious devotion to his mentors and to his particular brand of traditional instrument, will probably keep the teenyboppers at bay for the time being at any rate.
I met Paddy Moloney when I was 16 years old, he explains. The Chieftains were my absolute heroes at the time. I played some concerts with them in Spain and I showed them a couple of Galician jigs. Then I got a call from them a few years later to come to Dublin to play on the Treasure Island soundtrack and since then, I ve been around the world a couple of times with them.
Nunez went on to play on the Chieftains star-studded Grammy-writer The Long Black Veil and he has largely inspired and played a key role in their latest Grammy-grabbing project, Santiago which, for the first time, explores the similarities between Galician and Irish music.
Meanwhile, Nunez has just released his first solo album, Brotherhood Of The Stars, an ambitious project which features no less than fifty guests including The Chieftains, Triona Ni Dhomhaill, Ry Cooder and Spanish pop singer Luz Casal.
The fact that there is a thriving Celtic culture in Spain might come as a surprise to some, but according to Nunez there are over 15,000 pipers in Galicia alone and many more dotted throughout the world.
When most people think of Spain they think of flamenco and castanets and oli oli and all of that, he explains. That s the southern culture which became the dominant Spanish culture under Franco. But there are actually two principal cultures in Spain. The northern culture was much more Celtic and though it was repressed for years it never completely died. Strangely enough, Franco was actually Galician but he hated his own roots and tried to suppress it. Now all these cultures are becoming bigger and the whole Celtic connection has blended with a European influence and with music from Latin America, Mexico and Cuba.
On Brotherhood Of The Stars Nunez has also tried to re-unite the various elements of Spanish music culture. It s the first time that Flamenco guitar is played with Galician pipes, he explains. These two instruments are the two most important instruments in Spain but they d never been combined in this way before.
It s also the first time that people from other countries have played Galician music. People in Spain can t imagine that Ry Cooder for example can play a Galician tune. The Chieftains are more familiar to us but we had never heard Cubans playing Celtic music till now.
And, it is to the Chieftains that Nunez owes most of his recent fame as well as his working methods.
Most of the guests on my album are either friends, or people I met through the Chieftains, he admits. I met Ry Cooder in New York working with Siniad O Connor for the Long Black Veil album. The Chieftains have taught me the value of collaborating and how to fuse different styles in an exciting way. n
Brotherhood Of The Stars is released on BMG Records.