There are the Chieftains, and there’s everyone else. This Year (2007), the band will celebrate 45 years together, with founder Paddy Moloney still at the helm. Many talented players have come and gone, but this Irish juggernaut continues to tour far and wide. The band is fond of quoting the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” during its shows, and they really are the Rolling Stones of the global folk music scene. No other band can sell out halls in Minneapolis or Miami year in and year out; they’ve played Carnegie Hall an amazing 22 times over the years. There have been gigs played on the Great Wall of China, in the Hollywood Bowl and at the Sydney Opera House, but the one that still means the most to Moloney is a St. Patrick’s Day concert audaciously booked into London’s Royal Albert Hall.

“That came in 1975, we were semi-professional up till that,” Moloney recalls during a few stolen moments amidst a typically hectic schedule. “We sold out the Albert Hall with three weeks notice. To me, that was it. Seán Potts and myself, we had tears in our eyes that night.” It took several minutes of conversation and some prodding on my part before Moloney recalled that turning point for the band. A man who seems to be in perpetual motion when not sitting playing his uilleann pipes, Moloney wants to talk about Japanese singer Chistow, who he is to play with in the studio on the day of this interview. “We’re in the studio for the next four days, recording a song which is half Irish, half English, believe it or not, in the Irish language, and one of her own songs—she’s from one of the islands off of Okinawa. I’m also going to ask, once I have it recorded and done, Ry Cooder to throw a few little shapes on it as well.” Throughout the conversation, Moloney talks of collaborations and future plans with enthusiasm, citing an upcoming tour of Argentina as a real highlight; nonetheless, as the story above proves, he recalls the past with wonder and pride. Fleeting for all of us, the present is simply a bridge to the next jam session, gig or event on the Moloney agenda. “Here we are 45 years now, and should be slowing down an awful lot, but you know we’ve just done a few concerts and television, like we’re on local television here on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And doing big symphony orchestra stuff and with big choirs for Christmas, from [1991’s] The Bells Of Dublin, you know, items from our Christmas albums. And so, there’s a lot of little shows happening all the time. And of course we’re getting ready for our tour, which will happen the 5th of January we’re playing with the Houston Symphony Orchestra.” It’s a far cry from the humble beginnings of the band. Taking its name from John Montague’s book Death Of A Chieftain, the idea of the band—a traditional folk ensemble that would have broad appeal—was hatched in 1962 at Claddagh Records founder Garech Browne’s Dublin flat. Moloney was a promising young piper who had studied under Leo Rowsome and was gaining a name for himself in Dublin. At the time, he was often playing with future Chieftain Seán Potts and future Dubliner Barney McKenna. Moloney also was a founding member of Cealtóirí Chualann, which had composer and arranger Seán Ó Rioda as a guiding light—Ó Rioda is generally regarded as the musician who founded the modern Irish folk music movement.

The traditional music scene was just starting to take off in the late ’50s and early ’60s after some dark years. “[It wasn’t] like what it is now,” Moloney points out. “You hear and see and feel tremendous respect. And even in the ’50s, to be walking around with a fiddle under your arm, or pipes, you’d get a bit of a slagging from your schoolmates. You know: ‘Oh, he plays that biddle d ding music.’ But it’s a different story now, let me tell you.” A serious musician and an ambitious young man, Moloney dreamt of taking the band into concerts halls instead of the local pub. “I purposely didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I mean, Matt [Malloy] has his own pub, and we often play there, not as the band, but we play as solo musicians. But for presentation, for the Chieftains and how I put the message across, I just felt, not snobby or anything, I just wanted people’s full attention. Because you go into a pub the first thing you want is a drink, and then if there’s a few tunes, grand. You know?” Moloney is also quick to point out that one took a risk daring to play music in the bars back in those days: “Well, it was only in recent years, like since the ’60s, that it was tolerated. Before that, for someone to disturb you when you were in the middle of your pint of Guinness, that was a sacrilege. I mean, it was never tolerated! You know? And that’s how I grew up—going to people’s houses, going to various sessions in music clubs where there was no drink whatsoever.” The group recorded its self-titled debut in 1963, releasing it two years later. The 11 tracks were all traditionals, arranged by Moloney. Each song was a sort of thoughtful introduction to the players and the music. Album opener “Sé Fáth mo Bhuartha (It Is The Cause Of My Sorrow)” is aptly named, elegiac pipe piece that morphs into a jig, then an air, then a reel. By the time the listener gets to the Moloney solo reel, “The Boy In The Gap,” it’s blatantly obvious that the players–Moloney on uilleann pipes and tin whistle, Michael Tubridy on flute and concertina, Seán Potts on tin whistle, Martin Fay on fiddle and David Fallon on bodhrán—were highly skilled musicians, Moloney himself not the least among them.

At the time, the idea of Irish folk music released commercially was still a new and novel one. Claddagh had released the first such album in 1959, a Leo Rowsome disc entitled Rí na bPíobairí--King Of The Pipers. Other early artists included Scotland’s Whistlebinkies, Irish classical composers Seán O Riada and Frederick May. There were spoken-word albums of Irish, Scottish and English writers reading their work, as well. It would be five more years before the band recorded Chieftains 2. In that time, the band and Irish folk music would pick up speed. Nonetheless, Moloney still had a day job, first working for a building supply store in Dublin and then overseeing the running of Claddagh. According to the leader, “I was waiting for the time to pull up the stake and go fulltime professional and persuade my colleagues in the band to come with me. And, you know, everything had to be taken into consideration. The families, and that sort of thing, and children, and it was traditional Irish music, it wasn’t rock, it wasn’t pop, it wasn’t classical, where you know there was a stage for it already. It was a brand new thing that happened.” Even working semi-professionally, the band’s sound continued to evolve, becoming ever more elegant. The final early transformation would come in 1973 with the arrival of traditional Irish harpist Derek Bell on The Chieftains 4. The classically trained Bell’s playing added a seriousness to the Chieftain sound that befitted Moloney’s concert hall aspirations. Bell’s work on the slow air “Carrickfergus” has a sweeping beauty that sets the tone for the entire piece, and probably prompted the invitation from Moloney to join the band. Another highlight of this watershed album is the epic “The Battle Of Aughrim,” a suite of ideas that seemed to convey musically the entire spectrum of emotions that must have been felt by those on the battlefield that day. By the late ’60s, the band began to open for high-profile folk-rock outfits like Fairport Convention and the Incredible String Band. The crossover was a natural one, and the band began to achieve cult status. The Chieftains’ stock took a jump when Stanley Kubrick included their “Woman Of Ireland” in 1975’s Barry Lyndon. Subsequently, the song caught on with American FM stations, no doubt resonating with American folkies and Irish-Americans’ growing interest in their roots. Striking while the iron was hot, the band toured America in 1975 (their first show was at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall), and hasn’t looked back. Over the years, the band has toured the U.S. each winter, starting in the new year and culminating in the Northeast around St. Patrick’s Day. Just about every band in Ireland is making a trek to the U.S. in February and March to play, but none do it on the scale of the Chieftains. Nor are any of them celebrated with an Irish postage stamp, which happened in November 2006. The band’s line-up has changed over the years. Longtime bodhrán player and singer Kevin Conneff has held his seat since 1976. Tin whistle player Seán Potts and flutist Michael Tubridy dropped out of the band in 1979 (replaced by Matt Molloy), and Bell, a fan favorite who became nearly as well-known for his stage gags and his repartee with Moloney as for his harp playing, died somewhat unexpectedly in 2003–he was on the mend after some heart problems landed him in the hospital. Moloney has always enjoyed adding guests to recordings and live performances—singers like Sinead O’Connor, Sting, Mick Jagger, Art Garfunkel, Elvis Costello, Diana Krall, Bono, Van Morrison and Tom Jones show up on later albums like Long Black Veil, Santiago and Another Country. These poppy fusions could seem designed to sell records or gain press, but Moloney’s list of collaborators also veers off into unexpected territory–a 2000 tour with Mongolian band Yat-kha pushed at the outer limits of convention, while the band’s 1982 tour of China (where they became the first Western band to play on the Great Wall) came off surprisingly well; a live album, documentary and concert video all captured the trip. The band’s also worked with Nashville studio pros like Jerry Douglas and Chet Atkins, as well as stars like Ricky Skaggs, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

“I just find the world a smaller place, and there’s great excitement,” Moloney says. “I look to reach out there. I love traditional music; I love folk music. It’s the beginning of all music, that’s how it all starts. Even the great masters, the Beethovens and people like that, they’ve all some time they pull on it, you know. They’ve done a few of their compositions written around folk tunes from different countries. And I just love that.” While these studio efforts tend to lean toward interesting but well-behaved, Moloney’s live invitations can have an air of a party that’s spinning out of control–dancers seem to come dangerously close to kicking the musicians, the musicians aren’t so rehearsed (and sometimes can’t even speak English). Under those circumstances, Moloney’s as much ringmaster as bandleader, laughing as he seemingly stokes the fires of chaos by changing songs on the fly. “I think it has an awful lot to do with myself in a way, but they’re always very interested in seeing how it’s going to happen,” Moloney says of his bandmates. “They’re always a bit afraid: ‘What’s going to happen? What have you got up your sleeve this time?’ and they sit back and wait and don’t say nothing, just hope for the best.” The fears of Moloney’s bandmates were realized even in Moloney himself when they played Carnegie Hall in 2006—dancers went into the audience and pulled members out of their seats to join a Cape Breton andro dance that moved up and down the aisles. “I don’t think the ushers and usherettes were too pleased,” the piper says, laughing conspiratorially. “And then the crowd came up on the stage, you know that’s sacred ground! They were shouting, ‘We made it! We made it! Carnegie Hall!’ and they were dancing on the stage. At that point I grabbed my pipes and scooted out around the back and disappeared. I left them all to it, you know with the house lights on.” In Ireland, the band has a tradition where musicians can come up and play for the last 20 minutes of the show. According to Moloney, a week before this interview took place, 80-85 musicians hopped up on stage to play with the band. The band’s influence has become incalculable. It’s a joke to say that Paddy and the Chieftains know and have played with every musician and dancer in Ireland, but not much of a stretch—there is a recurring thread of child musicians trotted out to play, only to return to the Chieftains bandstand as accomplished professionals. The band (perhaps infamously) gave heaving-chested hoofer Michael Flatley a job for seven years before he left to create Riverdance. Moloney sounds positively glowing as he lays out plans for the band’s 2007 tours. There’s a young group called Liadan, who sing harmony, plays and dances. The Polatzke brothers will be back to dance, and Jon will play fiddle with the band all night. Triona Marshall has taken Bell’s place at the harp and longtime dancer Cara Butler will be with them. He promises plenty of surprises as well.