The Chieftains
On St Patrick's Day in 1972 Bell gave a performance on radio of the music of Turlough O'Carolan, an 18th century blind Irish harpist. At that time Carolan's music was virtually unknown, though today almost every album of harp music contains one of his compositions. Working with Derek on the project were several members of The Chieftains. Bell became friends with the leader of the Chieftains, Paddy Moloney. For two precarious years he recorded both with the BBC Northern Ireland Orchestra and with The Chieftains, until finally becoming a full-time member of the Chieftains in 1975.
Read more about this topic: Derek Bell (musician)
Famous quotes containing the word chieftains:
“Much wondering to see upon all hands, of wattles and woodwork made,
Your bell-mounted churches, and guardless the sacred cairn and the rath,
And a small and a feeble populace stooping with mattock and spade,
Or weeding or ploughing with faces a-shining with much-toil wet;
While in this place and that place, with bodies unglorious, their chieftains stood....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)