"So,
Mr. Moloney, first of all, let's try to understand the meaning of your last
album's title".
"Of
course. To realize "Santiago", the previous record, I had invited a
wonderful bag-pipe player whose name was Carlos Nunez. Well, in an old Nunez
record (don't ask me which one was it because I can't remember.. you know, it's
the age..!) there was a wonderful Spanish song called just "Tears of
stone". I thought it would fit perfectly what I was up to."
"And
what were you up to, by chance?"
"A
new album, of course, all focused on love, and its several meanings and ways,
from joy to sadness, from passion to hate, from mystic ecstasis to the hell of
senses. Everything, from a to z. I meant it being interpreted by lady-vocalists
because I think that women's interpretative talent is something huge and massive
and it could be easily spread all over the world. I have been working constantly
for three years on this project, and the result is close to everyone's ear,
now..."
"
Let's get back to the vocalists, if you don't mind. Glancing rapidliy at your
guest-list, I have the feeling to be facing a Gotha of female vocalism: Bonnie
Raitt and Nathalie Merchant, Joni Mitchell and the three Corrs sisters, Sinead
O'Connor and Mary Carpenter, Loreena McKennitt and Akiko Yano, Sissel and Joan
Osborne, the Auna Ensamble and Diana Krall... it's amazing!"
"Yes,
it is. And the copy of the album you have doesn't include Dadawa, the great
singer from Singapore who apperars in the "Tears of stone" version
destined to Japan. I like Dadawa so much that I realized a special kind of music
just for her, let's call it "Chino-Irish" that she improved with an
absolutely extraordinary poetic sensibility. The song is "Tears lake"
and talks about a young man who sing his faraway love with such a struggle of
emotions that his tears drop from his eyes to the ground and form a lake."
"Very
touching. Tell me something about the other singers: Joni Mitchell, for
instance."
"Oh,
dear Joni. I met her for the first time when I was in Japan, where we did a
great performace in a wonderful abbey. There was Bob Dylan, either! Joni... that
time she performed a song, "Magdalein Laundries" who talked about a
laundry-owner convent and the general feeling (among prostitutes, orphans,
teen-mothers and depraved girls) was a devastating sadness: a true desperation
and despair.
To
be honest, I didn't like that song a grat deal, but she kept saying " I
feel like a sort of religious feeling in it, which can do good to the love-based
album you're working at". So, I wanted to please her, and I rearranged the
harmonies in order to have them the way they are now. I have to admit I did
really like what came out."
"
What about Diana Krall?"
"Before
working with her, I didn't really know who she was. Actually I was planning to
ask Aretha Franklin to join us; but, you know, it's so hard to get in contact
with her! Then someone introduced me to Diana Krall and as soon as I 've
listened to her tapes, I've felt breathless and amazed. There's something about
her, she's a wonderful singer, the new Sarah Vaughan! Then I understood that her
voice was exactly what I was looking for, a sort of Irish-Gospel with
jubilee-like choruses embellished by pyrotecnic "flights" of our Sean
Keane's violin. Cool, isn't it?"
"Absolutely.
But in my opinion "Sake in the Jar"- Akiko Yano's song- is very
particular as well."
"Yes,
you're right. Akiko- she's a smashing interpreter, able to build a bridge
between East and West with the only power of her voice. I remember when we first
met in Okinawa with all those dancers and singers and every kind of musical
instruments which transformed the real world in a small multimedia village! It
was a big time-experience and I believe you can feel this atmosphere when
listening to "Sake in the jar".
That
song might seem a little "ethylic"- you know well that the Japanese
drink Sake as much as the Irish drink whiskey- but in the end it talks about
love from the very beginning till last world. Cheers!"
