The Chieftains:4/7

The Chieftains:4

1973

Claddagh Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Drowsy Maggie  2. Morgan Magan  3. The Tip of the Whistle  4. Bucks of Oranmore  5. The Battle Of Aughrim  6. The Morning Dew  7. Carrickfergus (or Do Bhi Bean Uasal)  8. Sláinte Bhreagh Hiulit  9. Cherish The Ladies  10. Lord Mayo  11. Mná na hÉireann (Women of Ireland)  12. O'Keefe's Slide /An Suisin Ban (The white blanket) / The Star Above The Garter / The Weaver's Slide


Damn, from Ray Charles to the Chieftains... I'm getting in deep over my head this time...I know absolutely nothing about traditional Irish music...I don't know a jig from a reel...It's all soap-cutting music to me...

		Honestly, it had never really crossed my mind to listen to instrumental Irish folk music before...I'd always kind of associated it with yuppies who claimed to be 1/16th Irish, armed with CD wallets full of Yanni and the sounds of the tropical rainforest...But here I am, sober as a ghost, listening to the Chieftains... When the band keep things rolling at a brisk clip, on songs like "Drowsy Maggie" and "The Bucks of Oranmore," I can't  help but get sucked into the energy...Fast, fresh, full of fascinating moving parts...And "The Battle of Aughrim" is a prog epic to my ears (however cloth-y those ears may be)...To be honest, they lose me a bit on the slower, harp-driven stuff...I'm sorry, I'm just not made for this type of thing...I have the same problem with a lot of classical music, where the sound just seems to drop out of existence for long stretches of time...But if you're into the whole "waking up in a green, green glen, surrounded by swirling mists and dewy lichen" mental imagery, then you'll probably enjoy the quieter moments of the album... Oh yea, see the guy in the middle with whistle? His name is Paddy Moloney...How is that for Irish cred? The best part of the album though is all the miscellaneous stuff that someone left inside this particular used copy: A review from a 1976 issue of Time magazine. You should probably read this instead of my Chieftains write-up..They appear to know what they're talking about...I'm pretty much just going to write about leprechauns from here on out... The other, non-Chieftains-related side of the Time magazine page, featuring drawings depicting sleeping tigers, a giant baby and an intangible jester walking through an electric fence or something...\ Here's a program for a Chieftains performance at the Ahmanson Theatre in beautiful downtown...Somewhere...I don't know where this place is... Here's page 2 of the program...With a big, long bio of the band... Here's some more large blocks of text... Ahh, I'm sick of scanning in stuff...Let's listen to some music...Here's   "Drowsy Maggie" by the Chieftains... The Chieftains: 7 1977 Claddagh Records Format I Own it on: Vinyl Track Listing: 1. Away We Go Again  2. Dochas  3. Hedigan's Fancy  4. John O'Connor And The Ode To Whiskey  5. Friel's Kitche  6. No. 6 The Coombe  7. O'Sullivan's March  8. The Ace And The Deuce of Pipering  9. The Fairies' Lamentation And Dance  10. Oh! The Breeches Full of Stitches Damn, I can't resist this album cover! Lookit! Chock FULL of Leprechauns!!  And  since "Darby O' Gill & the Little People" is one of my favorite movies, so this was a no-brainer... ' To keep up with the changing musical climate, the Chieftains turn to a disco/punk hybrid"...All slashing guitars and four-on-the-floor hot-tub thump...Nah, I'm just jivin' ya..."7" sounds the same as "4" to me, which probably isn't too surprising considering the Chieftains adhere strictly to traditional music...They were already accomplished musicians, and the music is based on folk songs that have been around for centuries anyway, so outside of massive line-up changes and updates to recording technologies, not much can change... ...and the cover doesn't lie. This is some serious Leprechaun music...Tin whistles, thumpy hand drums, fiddlin' fiddles...Think of "Irish Music" and this is exactly what you're imagining...Oh yea...How did I hear about these guys?  Why, from a Saturday Night Live Performance that came out right around the same time "7" was released....I remember them sitting on a bales of hay just a-jiggin' away... I remember the guy playing the drum thingy had big guns and the guy in the tie on the far right was the most accountant-y guy I had ever seen in a band (second only to the gentleman in the suit and tie next to the drummer)...I think more than anything it was that guy who intrigued me so much...It was just a bunch of middle-age guys rockin' out (in their own way)...It had such a sense of fun and the guys were so ridiculously skilled that you had to love it.. Here's to middle-aged dudes and tin whistles and fiddle-dee-dee...Let's check out "Away We Go Again" by the Chieftains...Enjoy...