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Cherish the Ladies | |
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Background information | |
Origin | New York City |
Genres | Irish folk, Celtic |
Years active | 1985–present |
Members | Joanie Madden Mary Coogan Mirella Murray Nollaig Casey Kathleen Boyle |
Past members | Aoife Clancy Eimear Arkins Siobhan Egan Winifred Horan Eileen Ivers Liz Knowles Donna Long Maureen Doherty Macken Mary Rafferty Deirdre Connolly Marie Reilly Cathie Ryan Heidi Talbot Michelle Burke Roisin Dillon |
Website | www |
Cherish the Ladies is an American female super group that plays Celtic music. The band began as a concert series in New York in January 1985. It was the brainchild of Mick Moloney who wanted to showcase the brightest female musicians in America in what had been a male-dominated scene. The group took its name from a traditional Irish jig called "Cherish the Ladies", and the series opened to sold-out concerts. Their leader Joanie Madden plays flute and tin whistle. The other members of the group play a wide variety of instruments. Their albums contain both tunes (instrumental tracks) and songs (tracks with vocals).
Joanie Madden was born in the Bronx, New York, to Irish parents and is an All-Ireland champion on the flute and whistle. She became the first American to win the senior all-Ireland championship on the tin whistle in 1984. [1] Since 1985, she has been the central force behind Cherish the Ladies, driving them to international acclaim. The group has been a launchpad for many of the top female musicians in Celtic music, including Eileen Ivers, Winifred Horan of Solas, Cathie Ryan [2] Heidi Talbot, Liz Knowles, Aoife Clancy, and Deirdre Connolly.
Over the course of the past thirty-nine years[ when? ], the band have played in the finest concert halls and have performed in North and South America, the UK, Europe, New Zealand and Australia. Their shows are always accompanied by world-class step dancers on stage.
They have recorded many albums, but their album The Girls Won't Leave the Boys Alone stands apart from their other albums in that it consists mostly of songs and includes guest appearances by Arlo Guthrie, Tom Chapin, Pete Seeger, Eric Weissberg, Matt Molloy, and The Clancy Brothers. Cherish the Ladies has also recorded a track on the Grammy-nominated album, The Celtic Album with the Boston Pops.
Although the group was originally formed from Irish-American female musicians, the current lineup, along with Madden, consists of founding member Mary Coogan (from New York) on guitar, All-Ireland Champion Mirella Murray from Connemara, County Galway, on piano accordion; pianist Kathleen Boyle from Glasgow, Scotland; fiddler Nollaig Casey from Bandon, County Cork, and Kate Purcell from County Clare on vocals.
The tin whistle, also known as the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, putting it in the same class as the recorder, Native American flute, and other woodwind instruments that meet such criteria. A tin whistle player is called a whistler. The tin whistle is closely associated with Irish traditional music and Celtic music. Other names for the instrument are the flageolet, English flageolet, Scottish penny whistle, tin flageolet, or Irish whistle.
Flook is an Anglo-Irish band playing traditional-style instrumental music, much of it penned by the band themselves. Their music is typified by extremely fast, sometimes percussive, flute and whistle atop complex guitar and bodhrán rhythms. Flook is made up of Brian Finnegan, Sarah Allen, Ed Boyd and John Joe Kelly.
Green Linnet Records was an American independent record label that specialized in Celtic music. Founded by Lisa Null and Patrick Sky as Innisfree Records in 1973, the label was initially based in Null's house in New Canaan, Connecticut. In 1975 the label became Innisfree/Green Linnet and Wendy Newton joined Null and Sky as operating officer. In 1976 Newton took over control of the now Green Linnet label and moved it to Danbury, Connecticut in 1985. Newton became sole owner in 1978. Newton's love of Irish music had been sparked during a visit to Ireland where she heard traditional music for the first time in a small pub in County Clare.
Liam Clancy was an Irish folk singer from Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary. He was the youngest member of the influential folk group the Clancy Brothers, regarded as Ireland's first pop stars. They achieved global sales of millions and appeared in sold-out concerts at such prominent venues as Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall.
Eileen Ivers is an American fiddler.
Thomas Makem was an Irish folk musician, artist, poet and storyteller. He was best known as a member of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. He played the long-necked 5-string banjo, tin whistle, low whistle, guitar, bodhrán and bagpipes, and sang in a distinctive baritone. He was sometimes known as "The Bard of Armagh" and "The Godfather of Irish Music".
Nightnoise was a music ensemble active from 1984 to 1997. Their original blend of Irish traditional music, Celtic music, jazz, and classical chamber music inspired a generation of Irish musicians. They released seven albums on the Windham Hill label.
Mary Bergin is an Irish folk musician who is widely acknowledged as one of the great masters of the tin whistle. She plays in both the Irish Traditional and Baroque styles.
The Irish flute is a conical-bore, simple-system, wooden flute of the type favoured by classical flautists of the early 19th century, or to a flute of modern manufacture derived from this design. The majority of traditional Irish flute players use a wooden, simple-system flute.
Michael Moloney was an Irish-born American musician and scholar. He was the artistic director of several major arts tours and co-founded Green Fields of America.
At Home is an album by Irish-American folk group Cherish the Ladies that was released in 1999 on the RCA label. It contains a combination of traditional Irish folk songs, such as the Irish language "Is Fada Liom Uaimí Uaimí," and purely instrumental numbers, including jigs, reels, and airs. Bobby and Liam Clancy of The Clancy Brothers made guest appearances on the album. One of the members of Cherish the Ladies, Aoife Clancy, was the daughter of Bobby and the niece of Liam. Her brother, Finbarr Clancy, sings with them on "John o' Dreams," while her cousin Dónal Clancy accompanies them on guitar. This was the second-to-last album on which any of the Clancy Brothers appeared together.
Cathie Ryan is an Irish American singer-songwriter, who has released five CDs and tours steadily with her band performing at festivals, folk clubs, performing arts centers and with symphony orchestras. Known for "her crystalline vocals and insightful songwriting," Cathie Ryan has been one of the leading singers in Celtic music since her start in the 1980s. She first came to prominence in 1987 as lead singer of the Celtic music group, Cherish the Ladies, with whom she recorded two CDs. She began her solo career in 1995.
Irish traditional music is a genre of folk music that developed in Ireland.
The High Kings is an Irish folk group formed in Dublin in 2008. The band consists of Finbarr Clancy, Brian Dunphy, Darren Holden, and Paul O'Brien. As of 2023, the group had released five studio albums, four live albums, two live DVDs, and one greatest hits album. Their first three studio albums appeared at number three or higher on the Billboard world music chart, the first two went platinum in Ireland, and all of their albums charted in Ireland.
North Texas Irish Festival is an annual three-day ethnic festival held at Dallas' historic Fair Park the first weekend in March. Started in 1983, the festival is the second oldest Irish festival in the country and the largest in the southwest.
Feadóga Stáin, Mary Bergin's debut album, has been credited with establishing the tin whistle as one of the first tier among the standard instruments of Irish Traditional Music. Members of Irish group De Dannan contributed accompaniment and the album is mostly a trio of tin whistle, Irish bouzouki and Bodhrán. This album has been cited by Joanie Madden as highly influential in the development of her own playing, and is generally considered by critics and scholars as a "definitive" or milestone album.
Joanie Madden is an Irish-American flute and whistle player of Irish traditional music. She is best known as leader of the all-female group Cherish the Ladies, but has also recorded and performed with numerous other musicians, and as a solo artist. She also teaches master classes and workshops.
Whistle on the Wind is the first solo album by flute and tin whistle player Joanie Madden.
Finbarr Clancy is an Irish folk singer and multi-instrumentalist. Early in his career he performed with The Clancy Brothers. He later became a member of the group The High Kings.