Irish Connection Chieftains Collaborate With Some Surprising Artists On Album That Has Grammy Written All Over It

What do Mick Jagger, Sting, Sinead O’Connor, Van Morrison, Mark Knopfler, Tom Jones, Marianne Faithfull and Ry Cooder have in common?

The answer is that they all love the Chieftains, Ireland’s premier traditional-music ensemble, and they all sing songs on the Chieftains’ remarkable new disc, “The Long Black Veil.” It includes traditional and contemporary songs from Ireland and America, all redone to incorporate the personalities of the above artists.

The Chieftains have often guested on other stars’ albums, so they decided to call in a few favors for their own disc, which was released on Tuesday. “We’ve been doing backing tracks on other people’s albums for 20 or more years. It was just time to turn it around a bit,” Chieftain Paddy Moloney said recently.

The Chieftains have won Grammy awards the past two years in the folk category - and it’s easy to imagine another on the way with “The Long Black Veil.” The title track is sung by Jagger in a mournful style that induces chills. It’s a country song originally, popularized by Lefty Frizzell, about a man who is unjustly convicted of murder; he can’t offer his alibi because he’d “been in the arms of my best friend’s wife.” He is hanged, and his lover, wearing a long black veil, “visits my grave when the night winds wail.” Jagger has an expressive (and underrated) way with country tunes, and he receives superb help from the Chieftains on harp and hammered dulcimer.

Jagger and the rest of the Rolling Stones (Keith Richards, Ron Wood and Charlie Watts) even show up to jam on “The Rocky Road to Dublin,” which is actually one of the weaker cuts. The Chieftains set the tempo early, then the Stones finally start to make their presence felt about three minutes into the tune. Richards offers a modified guitar riff from “Satisfaction,” but the band never quite jells and is upstaged by some Irish stepdancers at the end.

Elsewhere there are some magnificent moments. Two of the best belong to Sinead O’Connor, who sings a haunting version of “The Foggy Dew,” dedicated to men who died in the Easter uprising of 1916, a tragic moment in the history of Irish nationalism. “Valiant men I shall never see no more,” sings O’Connor, backed tenderly by Ry Cooder’s electric guitar, Derek Bell’s harp and Moloney’s uilleann pipes. Her other contribution, “He Moved Through the Fair” (originally “She Moved Through the Fair”), is a total showstopper. It’s a deeply emotional song about never quite connecting with a lover, aided by spacy harp fills and by Cooder’s sonorous, vibrating “floor slide” (a customized slide guitar).

Cooder also sings on the record, intoning the traditional air “Coast of Malabar,” about seeking a “darkeyed, lovely maiden.” He adds atmospheric guitar riffs that simulate waves crashing over the coast. It’s reminiscent of some of his soundtrack music, but helps underscore that though the album has deep roots in Irish music, it looks toward the global village. Adding to this theme is Sting, who does a fine bilingual version of the Gaelic air “Mo Ghile Mear” (“Our Hero”). This traditional song honors Charles Stuart, the Bonnie Prince Charlie of 18th-century legend.

The album’s songs were chosen by Moloney in association with the guests, and there’s not a frivolous choice among them. There are no schlocky sing-alongs. Some tunes are achingly melancholy, in fact, none more so than Marianne Faithfull’s “Love Is Teasin’,” a song that she and Moloney first discussed doing 12 years ago. It fits Faithfull’s survivalist mentality perfectly: “I wish I was a maid again but a maid again I can never be,” she sings in a hushed tone. She adds, “Love is a treasure when first it’s new, but as love grows older, then love grows colder and it fades away like the morning dew.”

Also of heavy import is Mark Knopfler’s treatment of “The Lily of the West,” about discovering one’s lover is unfaithful. Knopfler used to sing in folk clubs in Newcastle, England, and he affects a pretty good Irish accent; the Chieftains add sweet accompaniment from fiddlers Sean Keane and Martin Fay, as well as from Moloney’s uilleann pipes.

A lighter touch is evident on a couple of songs done by the Chieftains alone, particularly Kevin Conneff’s playful “Changing Your Demeanor.” And inadvertent comic relief comes from Welsh pop star Tom Jones, who overkills “The Tennessee Waltz.” (It was recorded with the Chieftains at Frank Zappa’s studio in Los Angeles, under “the bemused and watchful eye of Frank himself,” Moloney’s liner notes say.)

Overall, the chance to work with the Chieftains sparked most of the guests to exalted performances. Van Morrison remakes his “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?” into a version that is more impassioned - and more Celtic - than his previous version. That kind of magic courses through the album. You can wrap this one up and give it a Grammy award already.