VIRGINIA BEACH
Irish traditional music as it's heard today can be traced to one man and one band.
Paddy Moloney. The Chieftains.
"I brought out the color and the beauty of the music a little more distinctively," Moloney said.
That's like saying bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe merely added a little spice to back-porch pickin'.
The Chieftains perform Wednesday at the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts in Virginia Beach.
When Moloney formed the group in 1962, he spurred a revolution in the traditional music of Ireland. He took the old dance music and the ancient Gaelic airs, upped the energy and brought out the emotions. He added the sweet and deep sounds of the tin whistle and the bodhran drum, old Irish instruments that had fallen into obscurity.
Before The Chieftains, traditional music came from ceili bands, fixtures at traditional social dances of the same name. These bands played melodies in unison to a strict beat, Moloney said in a recent phone interview. "No harmonies, no experiments." At that time, such bands played for the community dances but were not showcased in concerts.
Moloney, 69 and a native of Dublin, grew up with music. By age 8, he was playing the tin whistle. Then he took up the Uilleann pipes, dubbed the Irish bagpipe because it makes sound through bellows powered by an elbow.
"My ancestors used to do the house dances in the cottages back home," he said. On holidays, his family went to stay with his grandparents in Ireland's Midlands region, where they'd spend evenings playing music and dancing.
As a teen, he became bored with the standard ceili. He broke out and formed various groups "that were doing strange things that purists were getting curious and annoyed over. My mind just opened up.
"Our music was in the houses, in the schools, at music festivals, but I wanted this music to be heard throughout the world."
He noticed that The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem did well promoting ballad music in the 1950s.
"I just felt, if they can get to Carnegie Hall and the Albert Hall in London, why not us? Why not the Irish music?
"When we sold out the Albert Hall in 1975, that was a sure indication. With no singing, no dancing, no flashing lights, no smoke screens. Just the music itself.
"With tears in our eyes, we felt we had made it."
Of the group's 46 recordings, 30 are straight-up "trad stuff," as Moloney put it. The rest include collaborations with famous musicians in the rock, pop and country idioms that keep the band fresh and broaden its audience.
The first was in 1988, when the group put together an album with rhythm-and-blues artist Van Morrison. "The Long Black Veil" of 1995 was a big crossover hit, including cuts featuring Sting, Mick Jagger and Sinead O'Connor.
For CDs released in 2002 and 2003, the band traveled to Nashville to perform with Alison Krauss, Ricky Skaggs and John Prine. Lately, Moloney, the group's arranger, has been talking with Ry Cooder about a possible album.
The Chieftains' current tour, which ends on St. Patrick's Day at New York's Carnegie Hall, features Scottish singer-actress Alyth McCormack and numerous guest musicians and dancers, from singer-fiddler Maureen Fahy (formerly of "Riverdance") to traditional dancers Jon and Nathan Pilatski.
Local dancers and musicians also will have a place in the show.
"To me, it's not right to just breeze in, play a few tunes and you're gone. This way, we're touching base with the mothers and fathers and the people who have whole generations of Irish gone before them.
"It's a mark of respect."
Teresa Annas, (757) 446-2485, teresa.annas@pilotonline.com