The Chieftains-A Chieftains Celebration (1989)

The Chieftains are undoubtedly Ireland's walking ambassadors, having managed over nearly five decades to become a mainstream Irish folk music group while maintaining the versatility, roots, coherence, and spontaneous, natural personality of their native culture. Formed by piper Paddy Moloney in 1964, he brought together renowned Celtic instrumentalists such as Michael Tubridy, Sean Potts, Martin Fay, David Fallon, Peader Mercier, Sean Keane, Kevin Conneff, and Matt Molloy, some of whom are still part of the band today. Their music, through traditional and popular, has evolved into more contemporary and diverse sounds, even subtly and occasionally fusing Celtic music with other genres like jazz and rock. Their numerous collaborations over the years include some fifty artists of the caliber of Ry Cooder, Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Mark Knopfler, Gary Moore, Bela Fleck, Roger Daltrey, Jackson Browne, Art Garfunkel, The Rolling Stones, Sting, Diana Krall, and Emmylou Harris. Six-time Grammy Award winners, the BBC Lifetime Achievement Award, and the honorary title of Irish musical ambassadors by the Irish government are just some of their many artistic achievements. With over fifty albums released, it would be impossible to single out one above the others, but it is undoubtedly "A Chieftains Celebration", a compilation released by RCA Victor in the late 1980s. Besides offering an exceptional retrospective of their first 30 years of dominance within Irish folk music, it was released to commemorate the millennium of Dublin.