These days, there's a piper on the £50 note - some indication perhaps of the present currency of traditional music. Back in the 1950s however, masters of bellows and bag were in a much less elevated position. The possibility of earning fistfuls of those £50s was a pipedream and, for a musician like Paddy Moloney, playing on a world stage was simply out of the question. Back then, rather than hopping across to New York and Boston, he was largely confined to what was known as the Donnycarney Triangle - a musical territory dominated by three great piping names - Dan Dowd, Leo Rowsome and Moloney himself.
But much has changed since those early days. Such has been the success of The Chieftains, that many seem to have forgotten that Moloney is a great piper. It's almost as if his reputation as a musician has, in some circles, been mislaid - lost somewhere beneath a huge mountain of Grammys. As he looks out over Boston, he seems quite surprised to be even asked about piping. And quite excited at the suggestion of a solo recording - just himself, the pipes and no trimmings.
"I would dearly love to do that. But I just don't want to go into a studio and belt away at jig, reel and hornpipe. I'd want to do something genuine - music from the time I started the pipes at eight years of age. It could go right back to music I picked up from Denis the Weaver - Denis Murphy. And then there are tunes I got from my grandfather. But first I really must get the instrument back to where it should be. You see, I had the same reed for 17 years. It was the last reed that Leo Rowsome ever made for me. It was something very intense and very personal and I never had a reed like that again. When it finally got broken, I cried. You see, there are things I just can't do unless I get a proper reed, because a reed is just like a throat. If I make a piping record, I want to get it spot-on. Mind you, I wouldn't like to go into competition with any of the wizards that are around today - although I do have my four All-Ireland medals!"
After school and those All-Ireland medals, Moloney worked in the accounting department of Baxendales. He might still be there, but for the renewed interest in Irish music which came about in the 1960s - much of it down to the late Sean O Riada. Moloney's work with O Riada's orchestra was for many, even in Ireland, their first introduction to the pipes - a bewildering instrument Moloney often describes onstage as "the octopus".
Emerging from that particularly stimulating situation with ideas of his own, Moloney and The Chieftains began to take on the world. He was at ease in the spotlight and understood instinctively the need to entertain an audience. And this was to set him further apart from the rest. Traditional music is, after all, a world where pipers in particular are talked about in hushed tones. Even among other musicians, it is as if pipers are somehow especially anointed - part of a mysterious sect with specific duties to their lineage and tradition. It is something Moloney takes seriously too - up to a point.
"I do feel that responsibility of being a piper and to the people who taught me, but I just go and do my own thing. Thank God I have friends like Sean Potts and Tomas O Canainn who have not forgotten that, at that time, I was producing things that nobody else was doing. I had established my own style. But you see pipers are all as jealous as hell of one another! I've gone along with it for years, and to be honest there's a little bit of it in me too. Sometimes I hear somebody playing and I say, God I used to do that the other way! And the harpers are the same. There was a fella called McCabe going back to the O'Carolan days. There was a blind harper and when he wasn't looking, McCabe cut the strings off his harp! That'll tell you how far jealousy can go. But I just do my own thing." The O Riada period is an endless source of debate within the musical community. There are arguments about who started what, and who did what first - but that's another night's work. When Paddy Moloney and The Chieftains struck out in the 1960s, it was clear that this was definitely Moloney's band. And it's still his band. When critics despair of some project or other, or become negative about Moloney's superhuman energies in promoting The Chieftains, they are forgetting that ultimately it's his band, and that it's his job to keep it where it is.
"I started the thing in 1962 and I run the band. I have to think of every little thing. I have to think of the first piece and the last piece and how it's going to flow. I never take anything for granted because I know that if you're going to succeed, which I think we have, you can't just get up and put your head down and play away. On the business side, I watch everything. You have managers, but then somebody has to watch the managers!
"As for the band, I think we are what we are. If we get criticised for doing collaborations or whatever, well that doesn't bother me in the least. If it's something I wanted to do and it's not reneging on the music, why shouldn't I do it? The band know me very well and, there's a trust there and I'm not going to pull something which isn't going to fit in. I am a traditional Irish musician and if it's something which is not comfortable with me, it certainly wouldn't be comfortable with any of the band. So I might come up with ideas, but I'm always in tune with the band. And I'm already onto the next one and the one after that."
Much of the criticism in recent years has focused on The Chieftains's many collaborations with other artists. While they had long guested with other performers, it all took a more serious turn when they made Celtic Heartbeat with Van Morrison. This particular one was hailed as a successful effort with both sides bringing something to the party, and between them, coming up with something exciting and new.
Other collaborations, however, were seen as less musically productive, with The Chieftains seemingly acting as a backing group for sometimes inappropriate singers. At least that's how some of it was received. Some of that criticism was certainly of the jealous kind, but some of it was also sincere. There were many who simply looked forward to the release of "a Chieftains record".
"Well you can't win them all. All I do is look for a piece of music that I can work with. Say the one with Sting where he sang Mo Ghile Mear half in English and half in Irish. I was still at liberty to come at that with my own arrangements. So we weren't just backing him up. Sometimes it might look like it's just an accompaniment, but I never look at it that way because if you took away our sound it would be a very different thing. A song is a difficult one all right, because we are not singers. But then there are times when we meet up with someone like Ry Cooder and you can get into a very deep musical session."
But whatever the reaction at home, these projects and collaborations have kept The Chieftains in the big-time for many, many years. As any traditional musician will tell you, there are quite rigid limits to success abroad. They talk of a glass ceiling which sees a band getting to a certain level but no further. The Chieftains are the exception and it has been precisely Moloney's various angles and schemes which have pushed them through that ceiling and kept them there. And serious credit is due there.
"Yes we have got through it and our audiences have got even bigger and younger. Audiences are changing for us all the time and this is a great thing and a healthy sign. But I never go out saying, God I'd better do something right now! For instance, the new album, Water from the Well, is more to do with timing on my part. I saw this down the road. Eight years ago I was saying to myself that I was going to do this album, then that album, and then we'll do Water from the Well. And that has nothing whatever to do with the mechanics of the record industry. It was simply a pattern of music that the band and I wanted to produce."
And this time it really is an Irish recording. In what seems like an answer to recent criticism, The Chieftains have come up with a CD which represents a musical tour of Ireland. While that in itself is a sensible marketing idea, the music is undoubtedly the real thing, with The Chieftains joined by musicians from various parts of the country. Some of the guests, such as Altan, are well-known to the public, but many of them are the more local greats of traditional music such as Peter Horan and Gary Hastings. So, while it's not purely a Chieftains record, there can be few complaints about this one. What's more, it hasn't driven anybody away, and for Paddy Moloney there is further relief in that.
"I was always a little bit afraid. We have always done a programme which is 75 per cent good solid traditional Irish music and the rest would be from whatever project we might be handling at the time. So, to go back and do an album which is closer to the music we started out with in '62/'63 was taking a bit of a chance. But then to get up and do it on stage and get the reaction we did in the States was a great delight.
"We get criticism for various things like having guests singing with us or whatever. But the thing is, a lot of these people haven't seen us play - or if they have it was 20 years ago. I think it's an essential thing to experience what the band are doing on stage at the moment. And it's better than ever."
The Chieftains play the Olympia Theatre, Dublin, on May 30th
Water from The Well is on RCA Victor