{"id":3312,"date":"2011-08-10T00:40:12","date_gmt":"2011-08-10T07:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=3312"},"modified":"2011-08-10T00:40:12","modified_gmt":"2011-08-10T07:40:12","slug":"the-chieftains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/08\/the-chieftains\/","title":{"rendered":"THE CHIEFTAINS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

THE CHIEFTAINS<\/h1>\n

Finding a vivid common ground between Ireland and Mexico<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Irish are deservedly proud of their talent for telling tall tales. But even Chieftains founder Paddy Moloney had a hard time believing the story behind his group\u2019s ambitious new album, San Patricio<\/em>, based on the story of a battalion of Irish expatriates who fought against Americans in the Mexican War.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a Catholic Irishman, John Riley, who came from Galway to America,\u201d explains Moloney, who co-produced the album with roots maven Ry Cooder. \u201cHe was given a rifle and told to go down there and shoot Catholic Mexicans under the command of Protestant generals. That was what he had left behind in Ireland!\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Riley defected to the Mexican Army and helped to form Saint Patrick\u2019s Battalion. They fought five battles before being defeated just outside Mexico City at the Battle of Churubusco. \u201cIt was their Alamo, you might say,\u201d Moloney notes. \u201cBut there was no surrender.\u201d<\/p>\n

What could have been a eulogy became a celebration in the Chieftains\u2019 hands. The goal, says Moloney, was \u201cnot to make it a doom-and-gloom thing, but expand it and use all the lovely colors of their music from all the regions of Mexico.\u201d After delving into research, Moloney began finding similarities between Mexican and Irish musical traditions. \u201cIt was fascinating,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd where I didn\u2019t hear an Irish tune, I made one up!\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that the translation was always easy. \u201cThere are times where their rhythms jump a bit in the middle of the piece, whereas our rhythms are sort of set,\u201d he observes. \u201cYou hear the off-beats of the guitar and the back line jumping back and forth. It\u2019s difficult enough, but terrific when you get into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Cooder\u2019s knowledge of Mexican styles came in handy, as did his address book. \u201cI was 90 percent of the way done, and he introduced me to some of the singers and acts that I wanted, plus some of the sounds that were missing,\u201d\u00a0Moloney says.<\/p>\n

Among the talents the group tapped were Linda Ronstadt, Van Dyke Parks and actor Liam Neeson, who served as narrator of the climactic battle scene. \u201cWhen Liam was finished, he was full of passion!\u201d recalls Moloney. \u201cHe said, \u2018Boy, if somebody\u2019s going to do a film, I want to play\u00a0the commander!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Hollywood, you\u2019ve been alerted\u2014and the soundtrack is all ready.<\/p>\n

\u2013Bob Cannon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE CHIEFTAINS Finding a vivid common ground between Ireland and Mexico The Irish are deservedly proud of their talent for telling tall tales. But even Chieftains founder Paddy Moloney had a hard time believing the story behind his group\u2019s ambitious new album, San Patricio, based on the story of a battalion of Irish expatriates who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[49,10156,2369],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3312"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3314,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3312\/revisions\/3314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}