The high lonesome cry of an Irish tin whistle is uniquely melancholy, a shivering sound that is the Celtic counterpoint to African-American blues. A moment of sweet release felt the world over, from China and Japan to our own Tucson community rich in Irish flavors.
You don't have to be Irish to love Irish music, said leprechaun-cheerful Paddy Moloney, the founder and auld sod soul of the band that started it all - The Chieftains.
We've been invited to play all over the world.
Moloney means that literally. In its 44-year history, this acoustic quintet took a style of music nobody cared about and turned it into a pot of gold - also literally.
The success of The Chieftains is unique in show business.
Imagine a handful of Appalachian mountain boys from some backwoods hollow becoming world famous for playing the same moonshine music they played on front-porch, jug-passing jam sessions every weekend. That would be the story of The Chieftains, only they're Irish playing their own traditional tunes so old nobody knows where they came from.
Before The Chieftains, if you wanted to hear this kind of music you had to go to the small-town pubs in Ireland, said Jonathan Holden, public relations manager for UApresents, which is bringing The Chieftains to Centennial Hall on Wednesday.
Originally they were all high school lads who got together to play music and drink beer, Holden explained.
Credit the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick for changing all that.
He made the band's music an integral part of his movie Barry Lyndon in 1975. The Chieftains already had released four albums by that time. They still kept their day jobs, but they were poised for stardom.
Back in the 1960s, The Chieftains were the first group to take traditional Irish music and put it into a recorded form that was widely accessible. Their songs were always very well arranged. That popularized the music, said Don Gest, a local concert promoter with decades of experience bringing Irish bands to Tucson.
I've been booking one or two Celtic bands a year. I used to do four or five a year, said Gest, who plays in the traditional Irish band Trim the Velvet as well. That's also the title of an old Irish tune, he said of the band's colorful name.
A few months ago, when the Auld Dubliner Guinness-styled pub opened near the University of Arizona, it wasn't long before Gest and about 20 others began showing up every Sunday afternoon (from 4 pm to 8 pm) to play their songs and down a few pints during informal musical sessions, as the musicians call them. This is the same way Moloney and his pals started back in 1962. Audience members are always welcome.
There is never an admission charge.
Tucson's Irish community has always been an active one. Loyal crowds not only show up for all those concerts but also hold St.
Patrick's Day parades, paint big shamrocks in the downtown streets and give the A on A Mountain an emerald-painted hue. Then there are the Scottish plaid folks in Tucson, as well, with their Seven Pipers Scottish Society, the annual Tucson Celtic Festival with its Highland Games, many traditional dancing competitions and the rest of it.
The Irish and Scottish communities are very supportive, Holden said.
If you can tap into their energy, it is tremendous.
But not even the energetic Paddy Moloney, that buoyant uilleann pipes player who started it all, can understand the enduring popularity worldwide of Irish music. In recent years there was the Cuban dance music craze after the film Buena Vista Social Club came out.
Then the surge in old-timey Appalachian picking and singing after the Coen brothers' picture O Brother Where Art Thou? hit the screen.
However, there's no such fad feeling to Irish music and especially to the Chieftains.
They have gone way past their first bloom of popularity with the Sixties Generation.
It's hard to know why this music stays so popular, Moloney said frankly. This is a music that just won't go away.
Now it is the young musicians of today who want to know everything about the Chieftains. They listen a lot.
I was a panelist at a seminar recently and they kept me talking for three hours.
My advice to them was to know how to get your message across. Let the audience see who you are. Don't keep your head down between your legs just playing for yourself.
Coming up: Irish duo Liz Carroll and John Doyle, March 15, at Berger Performing Arts Center.
What: The Chieftains in concert.
When: 7:30 p.
m. Wednesday
Where: Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd.
Keywords: Centennial Hall, Paddy Moloney
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