A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
How does one of the most influential Irish musicians in America celebrate today's Irish American holiday? NPR's Neda Ulaby brings us this St. Patrick's Day postcard from the founder of the band Cherish the Ladies.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOANIE MADDEN'S "JOHNNY DOHERTY'S/SEAN SA CHEO/LADY GORDON")
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: For Joanie Madden, it's not St. Patrick's Day so much as St. Patrick's Month.
JOANIE MADDEN: We're celebrating with 20 gigs this month. We have an 11-piece band on the road, including six musicians and four step dancers.
ULABY: They all call it, she says, March Madness.
MADDEN: March Madness. I know that's usually a basketball term, but it's our March Madness.
ULABY: Madden founded her band, Cherish the Ladies, 40 years ago. At the time, professional Irish music was dominated by men. Now Cherish the Ladies is a Grammy-nominated Celtic super group.
MADDEN: And we've performed almost 4,000 concerts all over the world and recorded 18 albums.
ULABY: In 2021, Madden was named a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts. When she was growing up, playing Irish music in the Bronx, her flute teacher told her the tin whistle was a toy. But Joanie Madden now plays it with the kind of superlative genius that Simone Biles applies to gymnastics.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOANIE MADDEN'S "JOHNNY DOHERTY'S/SEAN SA CHEO/LADY GORDON")
MADDEN: I just love the feeling I can evoke through that little piece of tin with six holes in it. I can really feel my soul coming alive when I'm playing it, and it does something to me.
ULABY: Madden also composes music. One of her pieces is played now by her band at every concert. It's called "Longing For Home."
MADDEN: And I wrote about my parents, who were immigrants that came from Ireland, came here penniless and worked like dogs.
ULABY: It's an homage, she says, to her ancestors and to every American immigrant.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHERISH THE LADIES' "LONGING FOR HOME")
MADDEN: I play this tune for all the immigrants that came to this country. And for me, I've never met an immigrant that I haven't seen that hasn't worked their behinds off from whatever country they came from. I think immigrant has become a bad word these days. And without the immigrants, this country would be nothing. So everybody from every part of the world helps to make us who we are.
ULABY: St. Patrick's Day, she says, is an immigrant's holiday, not just for 30 million Irish Americans, but for Americans period. And, she adds, this Irish American will be sitting down at the end of March Madness with her band at an Irish pub.
MADDEN: (Laughter) There's some that'll be drinking wine. There'll be some drinking a brandy. There'll be some having a couple of Guinnesses and a couple of Coors Light. We all deserve it because, you know, it's a tough month.
ULABY: But every month, she says, is a grand one to play Irish music.
Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOANIE MADDEN'S "JOHNNY DOHERTY'S/SEAN SA CHEO/LADY GORDON") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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