Joanie Madden entered the world in New York’s Woodlawn neighborhood of the Bronx yet drew her deepest musical impulses from Ireland, the land of her forebears. She became the first American ever to capture the Senior All-Ireland title on tin whistle and remains the youngest musician enshrined in the Irish-American Musicians Hall of Fame. As founder and director of Cherish the Ladies—an ensemble of first-generation Irish-American players—she has enjoyed comparable success apart from the group. Her 1996 follow-up release, Song of the Irish Whistle, stands as the best-selling whistle album ever recorded; a sequel appeared three years later.
Musical aptitude passed directly from her parents. Her mother, Helen Meade, born in County Clare, excels at dancing Clare sets, while her father, Joe Madden, originally from County Galway, plays accordion as an amateur. Although Madden took a handful of piano lessons, her true instrument emerged only after a family acquaintance placed a tin whistle in her hands. At thirteen she began lessons with the influential East Galway-born player Jack Coen, who lived nearby, financing them through babysitting earnings. The instrument felt immediate; after mastering just two tunes she joined her father’s band. Regular sessions alongside fiddler Eileen Ivers, a schoolmate, sharpened her technique further. Within five years she had advanced enough to finish second in the All-Ireland competition for two straight years before claiming her first gold medal in 1983 at age twenty-five—the same age at which her father had won on accordion.
Upon returning to New York with the medal, she received a congratulatory call from Mick Moloney, who was assembling a concert series spotlighting leading female Irish-American musicians at the Ethnic Folk Arts Center. The programs, titled “Cherish The Ladies” after a traditional jig, proved popular; a live recording from the series was later cited by the Library of Congress among 1985’s finest folk albums. That same year the collection Fathers and Daughters appeared, pairing each participant with her father in duet performances.
In May 1987 the Ethnic Folk Arts Center and the NEA formalized the project into a standing band that has remained active, issuing five further albums—The Back Door (1992), Out And About (1993), New Day Dawning (1996), Threads Of Time (1998), and At Home (1999)—plus a retrospective compilation.
Madden has sustained her Cherish the Ladies commitments while pursuing independent performances and recordings. Her first solo effort, A Whistle On The Wind, came out in 1994. She has appeared six times with the Boston Pops and contributed to their Grammy-nominated album The Celtic Album. Additional session work includes recordings by Sinead O’Connor, Pete Seeger, Andy Cooney, and Eileen Ivers.
