Voices: Joanie Madden of Cherish the Ladies

"This music is the real deal. Really, it's just amazing where it's taken us." That's whistle and flute player Joanie Madden talking, and she's speaking about Irish traditional music and the group Cherish the Ladies, the internationally renown band which is now going on more than twenty years bringing Celtic music and dance to audiences around the world.

"At first, it was just meant to be a couple of concerts of Irish women in music, just in New York City" said Madden, who was asked to host those 1983 shows by Mick Moloney, musician and scholar of Irish culture who'd been impressed by the somewhat underground and under appreciated status of top Irish women musicians and their contributions to the music. "I really didn't think anybody would come," Madden said, "but they sold out, and hundreds were turned away." Madden, who is at far left in group photo above, and guitarist Mary Coogan, at far right, are the two who remain from the touring group which evolved. At first, there were several short runs funded by grant money but when word came that those funds were no longer available, the women decided to go it on their own and see if they could make livings with their music. They did, though it wasn't an easy life. "I wish we'd had computers back then. I was on the phone all the time!" said Madden, who booked the gigs -- which meant finding venues and selling promoters on the idea. "At first, people thought we were some kind of band put together for novelty," she said, and in Ireland it was even more discouraging. " 'You're Americans, how good could you be?' " Madden recalled people saying.

Quite good, as it happened. The first touring band had several all Ireland instrumental champions, including Madden and fiddler Eileen Ivers, in addition to others equally talented, including singer Cathie Ryan, in the photograph at center above, who would later in her career be recognized for the quality of her singing and songwriting by Billboard, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, The Irish Times, and others. At the time, though, it was a group of daughters of Irish immigrants making their way in the world of music much as their parents had made their way in a strange new geographical country.

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Kerry Dexter, Music Correspondent Kerry's credits include VH1, CMT, the folk music magazine Dirty Linen, Strings, The Encyclopedia of Ireland and the Americas, and The MusicHound Guides.. She also writes about the arts and creative practice at Music Road and contributes to Fred Bals' Series of Tubes.