Harping on the Chieftains...

My little harp and I walked off alone with Paddy Maloney. (Seen above when we met again in 2000 at Chastain Ampitheater) The lungs heaved. I thought, well, if I die tonight, it's a good time to die...

We got into this ancient elevator with one of those sliding webby looking metal doors, chatting away until something I said distracted Paddy. He closed the door on his finger.

"Oh God take me now...I made Paddy Maloney break his finger..."

"No, no, all right. it's all right, see?" He wriggled it and smiled. Paddy is such a calm man, with a ready smile, no worries - at that moment anyway.

Good. I would not like to think I was there at the moment when his career ended. Paddy Maloney is not just a wonderful piper - he is a composer who has created many classically based compositions as well as traditional music arrangements. He had made it through a bad moment. Just let me live through the rest of the night...

Paddy took me to Derek's dressing room and introduced me to Derek. The photo shows Derek and I in 2000 - the two of us grinning like madmen in our second meeting, years later, both chubby and spectacled harpers. That was him - beaming with life.

He heard my name. "Ah, I've read your little magazine" (I used to edit a journal called "The Kilt and Harp"). "Terrible harp you have there." I wasn't offended - my harp had been through Renaissance Festivals and is very war-scarred. But I defended the sound. "You could use some work on the pegs here." he said, and showed me how to fix the problem.

I started coughing. I was amazed it had held off for so long, but the shock was finally wearing off. I explained he shouldn't worry, that it was allergies, but he said, "let's go get you fixed up with some hot tea and lemon," and off we went to the green room where the food was. He looked after me las if he were my uncle, all calm and funny chat. We talked until it was time for the show to start. We didn't worry about how the music would go at all.

I'll keep a lot for me, but there's one thing I tell everyone I can. As we ate and sipped out tea, Derek said he wasn't sure why people fussed so much over them (you should have seen the food spread the Fox people had set up!) "We do what we do." That's the point of the music, isn't it? Yes. It's ours. Play the music. But it's not just that. Everyone should do what they truly do. When that happens all sorts of doors open - like the stage door did for me.

The coughing went away. Calm settled in during a pleasant time I'll never forget. I went out to sit in the balcony and listened to them play until they started "Heartbreak Hotel," the agreed cue. Susan and I headed to the backstage area. They set up everyone else in a group, and stationed me just offstage with my harp to wait for my cue to go on. I watched these amazing men play from my peace in the darkness, in the calmest moment of my entire life. Safe in the dark, I watched them just do the music. Then the cue came, "go," and I took up my harp and walked on to join them.

There had been rumors that Sinead O'Connor would put in a surprise appearance. I had heard the rumor from the woman sitting next to us while Susan and I watched the show. "Really?" I murmured back, and said nothing until I had to excuse myself later. "You're missing the end?" she asked. No...

So when I walked out onstage, I knew the audience was expecting a thin young woman with no hair, not a very large middle aged woman with a small harp. There were whispers everywhere. As I sat down beside Derek, I clearly heard from the front row - "It's Sandra Sparks!" If I blew it, I was not going to be totally anonymous! But there was nothing to blow.

We did the music. We did what we do. The accompaniment for a tune I had never played before came off my strings as if I had played it all my life.

"Give Me Your Hand" ended, and the rest of the players arrived. Kevin Conneff, the Chieftains' singer and bodhran player, found himself surrounded by almost ten drumskin bearing strangers, and his face was a comic song!

Everyone else fit themselves round and about flute player Matt Molloy, fiddler Sean Keane, Galician piper Carlos Nunez, and Paddy - And we were off!

I can't remember the tunes we played together now. I remember the faces and the flying fingers, and the energy we put out over that stage. I remember gathering in the back when everything was done, and watching everyone's joy to be there.

I also remember that we had our own groupies when we appeared at the side door, friends who had been surprised when we walked out, and flew around the building to wait on the sidewalk when the concert was done. The Chieftains soon followed out that side door, and the celebration started up again, until they had to go...

Mine has never stopped. Not from that night. I keep the music...

This is the lineup at the times I played with them:

Left to right: Martin Fay, fiddle (sadly, I couldn't find any solo video of Martin, lovely player); Matt Molloy, Irish flute; Sean Keane, fiddle; Paddy Maloney, pipes and whistles; Kevin Conneff, bodhran and vocals; and Derek Bell, Irish harp, piano, and just about anything else he could lay hands on...

Yellow Cat, my harp, and me, making music together...