HE S THE Marco Polo of world music. And if music has a mind to journey then it s likely that Paddy Moloney will have a compass on his person.
Some 32 years on he and The Chieftains are still managing to push the outside of the envelope. Having mined so many seams of traditional Irish music, they ve set sail on a rake of voyages of discovery, and Moloney s equally at home whether piping in China, Japan or The Wild West.
His well-thumbed passport has recently acquired another stamp. Galicia is another country. But unlike the past, they don t do things altogether too different there. Truth is, it s easier to spot the common ground than the differences between the musics of Ireland and this essentially Celtic haven in Northwest Spain. And that s precisely what The Chieftains have done: stitched the traditions together seamlessly, woven the two tapestries into one. Aided in no small way by such luminaries as Ry Cooder, Los Lobos, Linda Ronstadt and a boy genius player of the Galician pipes, Carlos Nuqez.
Paddy Moloney is a man who walks it like he talks it, his conversation as liberally littered with disparate musical references as his music. With his well-known penchant for cross-fertilisation we ponder Santiago s genesis. As mammy of The Chieftains, surely his own musical peccadilloes must influence the direction the band has taken this time round?
He commendably takes a chance at rifling through his personal top 20 in search of favourites that ve left a lasting impression. With an apt aural backdrop provided by a humungous wave drumming against the roof of the hotel bar where we re the sole lounge lizards, each and every one of his selections is greeted with oceanic applause. Unsurprisingly eclectic, astonishingly disparate, Paddy Moloney s record collection could never be accused of tunnel vision. Quite where Santiago fits in this itinerary is anyone s guess, and all the more alluring a location it is, for that.
Anyway, here s Moloney s guide to the best and brightest, the sounds that ve managed to set the hairs on the back of his neck on end over the years.
unbelievable music
Viswa Mohan Bhatt: Viswa, he begins, is a Pakistani musician, someone I heard in August who I m not kidding you, is superb. He plays with 12 others on a giant matchbox, and when I heard them in August, the music just soaked up through the audience and brought everyone to their feet. It s unbelievable music. I sat for three hours transfixed, and I could have been up there with my pipes, and I wouldn t have put a note wrong, just improvising. It was just fabulous. Tunes I heard even reminded me of some reels we ve played in The Chieftains.
Ry Cooder: He s the loveliest man you could come across, but very shy. About 15 years ago, I did a piece of music for a children s story called The Tailor Of Gloucester recorded and narrated by Meryl Streep. Ry did one similar with Jack Nicholson and that s when we got to know one another. And I loved Paris, Texas. So when we decided to do Santiago, I just knew that Ry was the right man. He s a genius, he really is.
Lonnie Donegan: Going back to my earlier days, Moloney reminisces, music has always been so much part of my life, like a language to me. When I was in my teens and I wanted a break from the oul trad, I was very interested in skiffle music, and Lonnie Donegan who had Putting On The Agony ! I even formed a band called The Three Squares and I played the washboard and a thirty-shilling ukelele! Anyway the first album which my fiancie, who was 16 at the time, gave me was a group called The Clyde Valley Stompers, a great jazz band. Of course the trad crowd would ve killed you if you were heard listening to that sort of thing.
Mozart: Still one of my great favourites, and one of his best tunes is the Horn Concerto in E flat minor, which is so close to a jig called The Piper s Chair which we do, and I really love that. Mozart s favourite tenor was Michael Kelly who was born in Dublin, and he used to play billiards and snooker, and have a few jars, I m sure, with Mozart. Anyway, I m sure that Kelly played him The Piper s Chair because Mozart s tune is so close to it. But when I think of Mozart, I just think, you know, was there ever a bad note that came out of him? And to a non-classical musician, a folk musician like myself, I can see how he drew on the folk music of the time.
Sean O Riada: I have great admiration for O Riada, in his approach to absolute creative arrangements of traditional tunes, tunes that I ve been playing since I was six or seven years of age like Roismn Dubh . He did these wonderful arrangements for Mise Iire you know, and that s what turned me on to simplicity and feeling in the arrangements that he did. And of course he had great charisma too. He didn t profess to be anything more than what he did, and I saw that. I produced his last album for him, and I played it for him on his death bed, and he just raised his hand to show he liked it.
sensitive touch
Michelle Shocked: Michelle really knows what she s doing too. She does a version of Cotton Eyed Joe on Arkansas Traveller and I really love it. She did four shows with The Chieftains last July and I found her charming, a very talented lady. I saw her playing at a concert in New Orleans where she brought on two of the most talented young lads, a nine-year-old and a 12-year-old. One of them played the trumpet and the other the drums, and they were just unbelievable. Such talent.
Frank Zappa: I m mixing one of his tracks, and of course I can t think of the name of it, but I m working on it at the moment. He gave me an entire boxed set of his stuff, and to be honest, I haven t even heard them all yet. But to me he was a man a hundred years ahead of his time.
Tommy Potts: Another man who is well ahead of the rest. He was probably frowned on by the purists, but Tommy was full of passion. He was an uncle of Sean Potts, you know. Anyway, years ago I remember I recorded him down in Garech Browne s house in Luggala. I brought a drop of brandy and I had a microphone stuck in front of him, and he d be going great, playing wonderfully, and then, two minutes into a tune, he d stop to tell me a story! I did put an album of his music together finally, though, called The Liffey Banks, and I d recommend it to anybody. Just a solo fiddle album, but it s beautiful.
Van Morrison: Of course I can t leave out my very dear friend or public enemy, Mr Van Morrison! In fact, it was all on just three weeks ago for The Chieftains to do a second album with Van. We were tossing tunes around and everything, but it didn t happen. But what I like about Van is his traditional approach. He doesn t know he s doing it to him it s soul or jazz or whatever, but to me it s sean-nss singing from the west of Ireland: those long notes at the ends of songs that go on and on. But nobody does it like he does.
Siniad O Connor: She has this lovely, timid instant approach: forget about rehearsals, just do it. We did that recently with her and the recording just took an hour. She has that improvisation, that wonderful sensitive touch. But Ireland is full of brilliant young singers and bands at the moment. If you start, you just wouldn t stop. It s fantastic.
Ashley MacIsaac: A brilliant Nova Scotian fiddle player who plays some beautiful stuff. He dances and plays the fiddle at the same time. Marvellous, very talented young man.
Carlos Nuqez: He s a young genius. He plays the Gaita, the Galician pipes, and his own solo album has just gone gold in Spain. And I honestly don t think that Santiago would have been anywhere near as good if he hadn t been around. He introduced us to a lot of really great music, and he became a seventh Chieftain for the making of the album.
That s just a start, really, Paddy says, really settling in. Then there s The Beatles, The Stones, Eric Clapton, Richard Thompson I could go on forever, if I could only remember people s names! n