This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen #120 (October/November 2005).
The full article is in the magazine, available on newsstands, by subscription, and at the Dirty Linen webstore.

Cherish the Ladies

A Conversation with Joanie Madden, the Group's Driving Force

by Michael Parrish

Since its origins in the mid-1980s as a one-time group assembled for a festival, Cherish the Ladies has grown into one of the most venerable, beloved, and well-traveled of Irish-American ensembles, and it remains the most formidable lineup of female Irish traditional musicians in the world. Throughout its two-decade career and numerous shifts in personnel, the driving force behind the ensemble has been tin-whistle virtuoso Joanie Madden. During a brief break from the band's busy touring schedule, Madden graciously made time for a phone interview in which we discussed the group's past, its multiple current projects, and some of its plans for the future.

Before Cherish the Ladies was a group, it was an idea in the head of Mick Moloney, who first put together a group of top female Irish-American musicians for a concert series, and then convinced the National Endowment for the Arts to fund production of an album. As Madden put it, "Everything was based on his idea. We got together because of him, and he sort of created a monster."

This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen #120 (October/November 2005).
The full article is in the magazine, available on newsstands, by subscription, and at the Dirty Linen webstore.

Copyright ©2005 Dirty Linen, Ltd, Baltimore, MD