IrishMusicInfo
The Sunday Tribune Weekly Traditional Music Column by Fintan Vallely
990613
In 1988 B—rd F‡ilte conferred the title 'Ambassadors of Ireland' on The Chieftains. At that time they had already played Carnegie Hall, The Albert Hall the Red Tower Theatre in Peking and the Beijing Conservatory of Music. They were the first musicians ever to play in Washington DC's Capitol and had been awarded the 'Freedom of the city' in Boston and Chicago. They've been on the road now for thirty seven years, have thirty-four albums on sale, five of them wining Grammy awards. By now they have played with so many artistes they are accused of either alleviating boredom or just making money. Central to criticism is a notion of artistic and cultural integrity, that music has genres, each of which means most to the societies they spring from, and is likely performed best from within those cultures. Still, Popular, Rock, Country and other musics previously adopted by Paddy Moloney's imagination have historical and modern-day connections with Irish music in many ways. And he has given 'legs up' to many who went on to make their names - Michael Flatley among them. So how can one view their latest offering Tears of Stone, a compilation drawing in the rich, famous and talented female performers from various outposts of the First World? Bonnie Raitt is here, with Joni Mitchell, Natalie Merchant, The Corrs, The Rankins, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Joan Osborne, Loreena McKennitt, Diana Krall, Sissel, Akiko Yano, and fiddlers Eileen Ivers, Natalie Mac Master and M‡ire Breathnach. The singers take Irish songs and 'do' them, Moloney & Co. make the usual backing. But A Woman's Heart has already exploited this theme, twice, with Irish artistes. Green Linnet had its 'Celtic' women (GLCD 107), so too Shanachie, both following this example and that of the superb, 1995 Global Divas (Rounder 5062). But all of their artistes were singing from within their own fields, or their own cultures. Now at a comfortable distance, when all the mines have already been triggered, safely later in the century along come The Chieftains with Tears of Stone. Ground-breaking? Hardly. Courageous? They hadn't the nerve to mention SinŽad O'Connor's name on the PR sheet for the album in the USA, and there billed it as having not an 'Irish' theme, but 'love'. Artistically sound? As much so as Pauline Bewick doing house painting. Ground breaking? As gimmicky as having Ian Paisley recite The Hail Mary. Of course The Chieftains are an international touring band. What they do is their livelihood. But if the finest tracks on this album are those who are singing their own stuff anyway, and the clichŽd numbers are still reminiscent of Friday night in the local bar at closing time - why bother?. The Chieftains have integrity in their instrumental music, these singers have integrity. Why spoil it with a consumer-world gimmick of dubious artistic merit - even if it has great moments and beautifully-understated, shmaltz-free backing?
©Fintan Vallely, IrishMusicInfo.com
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