Cherish the Ladies
Encyclopedia
Cherish the Ladies is an American
all-female Irish-American super group. The band began as a concert series in New York in January 1985, 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 their 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).
, 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. 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
, Heidi Talbot
, Liz Knowles, and Deirdre Connolly.
Over the course of the past twenty five years, 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 boasts 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 accordion; fiddler Gráinne Murphy from Boston
; Glaswegian Kathleen Boyle on piano & Deirdre Connolly on vocals.
Cherish the Ladies are one of the busiest working folk groups in the world today.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
all-female Irish-American super group. The band began as a concert series in New York in January 1985, the brainchild of Mick Moloney
Mick Moloney
Michael "Mick" Moloney is a traditional Irish musician and scholar. Born in Limerick, County Limerick, he was an important figure on the Dublin folk-song revival in the 1960s. In 1973, he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
who wanted to showcase the brightest female musicians in America in what had been a male-dominated scene. The group took their name from a traditional Irish jig called "Cherish the Ladies", and the series opened to sold out concerts. Their leader Joanie Madden
Joanie Madden
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...
plays flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
and tin whistle
Tin whistle
The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, English Flageolet, Scottish penny whistle, Tin Flageolet, Irish whistle and Clarke London Flageolet is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is an end blown fipple flute, putting it in the same category as the recorder, American Indian flute, and...
. The other members of the group play a wide variety of instruments. Their albums contain both tunes (instrumental tracks) and songs (tracks with vocals).
Background
Joanie Madden was born in the BronxThe Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
, 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. 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
Eileen Ivers
Eileen Ivers is an Irish-American musician.Eileen Ivers was born in New York City of Irish-born parents and grew up in the Bronx. She spent summers in Ireland and took up the fiddle at the age of nine. Her teacher was the Irish fiddler Martin Mulvihill. She toured with Mick Moloney's band The...
, Winifred Horan
Winifred Horan
Winifred Horan is an Irish-American fiddler. After classical training, she played with the all-female Celtic music ensemble Cherish the Ladies before becoming an original memberof the Irish traditional music group Solas.-Biography:...
of Solas, Cathie Ryan
Cathie Ryan
Cathie Ryan is a singer and bodhrán player from Detroit, Michigan. Her parents came from Ireland and she is generally seen as an Irish or Celtic musician....
, Heidi Talbot
Heidi Talbot
Heidi Talbot is an Irish folk singer from Kill, County Kildare, Ireland. Talbot is the former singer of Irish-American musical group Cherish the Ladies.-Early life and education:...
, Liz Knowles, and Deirdre Connolly.
Over the course of the past twenty five years, the band have played in the finest concert halls and have performed in North
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
and South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Their shows are always accompanied by world-class step dancers
Irish dance
Irish dancing or Irish dance is a group of traditional dance forms originating in Ireland which can broadly be divided into social dance and performance dances. Irish social dances can be divided further into céilí and set dancing...
on stage.
They have recorded many albums, but their album The Girls Won't Leave the Boys Alone
The Girls Won't Leave the Boys Alone
The Girls Won't Leave the Boys Alone is an album by Cherish the Ladies released in 2001 on the Windham Hill label. The title reverses the lyrics "the boys won't leave the girls alone" from the Irish song "Belle of Belfast City/I'll Tell Me Ma", popularized in the album Irish Heartbeat by Van...
stands apart from their other albums in that it consists mostly of songs and boasts guest appearances by Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Davy Guthrie is an American folk singer. Like his father, Woody Guthrie, Arlo often sings songs of protest against social injustice...
, Tom Chapin
Tom Chapin
Tom Chapin is a Grammy Award-winning American musician, entertainer, singer-songwriter and storyteller.-Biography:Chapin attended State University of New York at Plattsburgh and graduated in 1966. From 1971-1976, he hosted a TV show called Make a Wish...
, Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
, Eric Weissberg
Eric Weissberg
Eric Weissberg is an American banjo player, best known for the theme from the movie Deliverance.-Biography:Eric Weissberg went to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, then the Juilliard School of Music. He joined an early version of the Greenbriar Boys , but left before they made any recordings....
, Matt Molloy
Matt Molloy
Matt Molloy is an Irish musician, from a region known for producing talented flautists. As a child, he began playing the flute and won the All-Ireland Flute Championship at only seventeen years old...
, and The Clancy Brothers
The Clancy Brothers
The Clancy Brothers were an influential Irish folk music singing group, most popular in the 1960s, they were famed for their woolly Aran jumpers and are widely credited with popularizing Irish traditional music in the United States. The brothers were Patrick "Paddy" Clancy, Tom Clancy, Bobby Clancy...
. Cherish the Ladies has also recorded a track on the Grammy
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
-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 accordion; fiddler Gráinne Murphy from Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
; Glaswegian Kathleen Boyle on piano & Deirdre Connolly on vocals.
Cherish the Ladies are one of the busiest working folk groups in the world today.
Discography
- Cherish the Ladies: Irish Women Musicians in America (1985)
- Fathers And Daughters from Cherish the Ladies: Irish Traditional Music in America (1985)
- The Back Door (1992)
- Out and AboutOut and AboutOut and About is an album by Cherish the Ladies that was released in 1993 on the Green Linnet label.-Track listing:# "The Old Favorite/The Flogging Reel/Leave My Way/The Kerryman" – 4:20# "Spoon River" – 4:44...
(1993) - New Day Dawning (1996)
- Live! (1997)
- One and All: The Best of Cherish the LadiesOne and All: The Best of Cherish the LadiesOne and All: The Best of Cherish the Ladies, an album by Cherish the Ladies, was released in 1998 on the Green Linnet label.-Track listing:# "The Cat Rambles to the Child's Saucepan/Maire O'Keefe/Harry Bradshaw's" – 3:20...
(1998) - Threads of TimeThreads of Time (Cherish the Ladies album)Threads of Time, an album by Cherish the Ladies, was released in 1998 on the RCA label.-Track listing:# "Rolling in the Barrel/The Pinch of Snuff/Vincent Campbell's/The Galloping Hound" – 3:17# "High Germany" – 4:11...
(1998) - At Home (1999)
- The Girls Won't Leave the Boys AloneThe Girls Won't Leave the Boys AloneThe Girls Won't Leave the Boys Alone is an album by Cherish the Ladies released in 2001 on the Windham Hill label. The title reverses the lyrics "the boys won't leave the girls alone" from the Irish song "Belle of Belfast City/I'll Tell Me Ma", popularized in the album Irish Heartbeat by Van...
(2001) - Across the Waves (2004)
- On Christmas NightOn Christmas NightOn Christmas Night, an album by Cherish the Ladies, was released in 2004 on the Rounder Records label.-Track listing:# "On Christmas Night/Charles O'Conor" – 3:28# "The Castle of Dromore" – 4:05# "Henry Roe McDermott/The Holly and the Berry" – 4:21...
(2004) - Woman of the HouseWoman of the HouseWoman of the House, an album by Cherish the Ladies, was released in 2005 on the Rounder Records label.-Track listing:# Reels: "The Jolly Seven/The Rascal on the Haystack/Bonkers in Yonkers" – 3:52# "Sweet Thames Flow Softly" – 5:21...
(2005) - A Star In The East (2009)
- Country Crossroads (2011)
External links
- Cherish the Ladies - official website
- Cherish the Ladies discography - MusicCity.org