Chieftains’ Moloney Gets Producer Gig

Name a form of world music, and it’s likely that Paddy Moloney, piper and leader of the Irish group the Chieftains, has had a go at it. Moloney and the five-time Grammy-winning ensemble have gotten together, at one time or another, with Spanish, French, Norwegian and African musicians--as well as pop artists such as Van Morrison and Sinead O’Connor.

Moloney, who has always had a strong feeling for the pulse of the music business, has now become executive producer of Unisphere, a new recording label dedicated to the development of new and established world music artists, original soundtracks, compilations and specialty projects.

“The whole Unisphere idea came about as a result of my going around the world, meeting with other musicians, and then using them on several albums, or getting them record contracts,” says Moloney. “BMG decided it should be kept in the family, so they decided to build this record label around me. It snowballed into this, thank you very much, and got left on my doorstep.”

What it has “snowballed” to in the near term is the soundtrack album to a Disney-produced PBS special, “The Irish in America: The Long Journey Home,” scheduled to air in January. The album, which features the Chieftains, Morrison, Elvis Costello, Vince Gill, O’Connor and others, will be released at the same time.

But Moloney sees Unisphere, which will follow the PBS soundtrack album with a collection of music from Cape Breton, as something more than a “world music” label.

“World music is a bit of a pigeonhole that I don’t really like,” he says. “Because what it’s really all about is talented performers from around the world.”

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Putumayo Moves On: Putumayo Music and Putumayo Apparel are now separate entities. Dan Storper, who started the influential line of ethnic clothing and crafts 20 years ago, has decided to cast his lot with the world music record business that became a surprisingly successful spinoff in the early ‘90s.

Storper’s interest in the clothing company has been sold to a licensee group. But he reports that the record company--which recently released “Women of the World Celtic II” and “Music From the Coffee Lands”--”will continue to collaborate with Putumayo Apparel, developing cross-promotions and selling our CDs in many of the shops that sell Putumayo clothing.”

The label’s current catalog contains 24 albums. Putumayo’s emphasis on collections such as “Islands,” “Latino! Latino!,” “One World” and the current releases has tended to identify Storper as the king of compilations. But he is proud of the fact that Putumayo, which was named the top independent world music label of the year by Billboard magazine, has been influential in introducing world music to a growing, new audience.

“Sure, you can look at a lot of our projects as survey courses, as ‘World Music 101,’ ” he says. “But, even as we begin to develop some individual performers, we’re going to continue to put together interesting, unusual compilations. I’ve got a list of projects I’d like to do that can take us well into the 21st century.”

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Gift Boxes: It’s not too early to start thinking about the perfect gift for the world music aficionado in your life. And here are three especially fine choices.

*** 1/2 “Unblocked: Music of Eastern Europe,” Ellipsis Arts. In characteristically thorough style, Ellipsis has collected three 3 CDs’ worth of music from Hungary, Estonia, Albania, Transylvania and beyond, and documented the assemblage with a detailed, 72-page booklet.

*** 1/2 “Holding Up Half the Sky: Women’s Voices From Around the World,” Shanachie Entertainment. Taking its name from the Chinese proverb “Women hold up half the sky,” this four-CD set devotes a disc each to Jamaican, African, Celtic and Asian culture. In addition to better-known artists such as Africa’s Angelique Kidjo, Ireland’s Mary Black and the Anglo-Indian Najma, there are equally skilled, if far less visible performers from Kenya, Okinawa, Uzbekistan, Indonesia and China. (The first three titles have been previously issued as individual CDs, but the Asian album is new.)

*** “The Roots of Riverdance,” Celtic Heartbeat. Haven’t had enough “Riverdance” yet? This four-CD collection includes composer Bill Whelan’s music from the show, a group of his pre-”Riverdance” compositions, the score for his “Seville Suite” and his soundtrack score for the film, “Some Mother’s Son.” Should be enough Irish sounds to last until St. Patrick’s Day--or at least until the next Chieftains album.

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Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).