The Chieftains, inadvertent prophets of the world-music boom for more than 30 years, have traveled the globe, emphasizing the compatibility of traditional Irish music with local sounds from Nashville to Beijing. Fittingly, this sonic circumnavigation ends up with the world beating a path to the Chieftains on The Long Black Veil, an album of traditional music performed with the help of some of the biggest names in the business.

Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, Sting, Sinéad O'Connor, Mark Knopfler, Ry Cooder, Tom Jones, Van Morrison and Marianne Faithfull are the marquee collaborators on this set, but the overall success of the album rests in the skilled hands of Chieftain leader Paddy Moloney. A sonic auteur of the highest order, Moloney has devoted much of his career to exploring the forces that unite seemingly disparate musical traditions and has developed a specific genius for designing arrangements tailored to the strengths of his subjects.

The title track, a country ballad best known to rock fans from the version recorded by the Band on Music From Big Pink, posed a tricky problem for Moloney in that Jagger is a particularly mannered ballad singer. Moloney attacked the problem with an understated arrangement that frames Jagger's vocal simply while adding a subtle emphasis through the underlying drone of the didgeridoo. Tom Jones presented the opposite challengè on another country ballad, "Tennessee Waltz," and Moloney responded with a bold arrangement that matches the bellowing Welshman's stentorian delivery, followed by a spirited mazurka that explodes the melody into a Saturday-night pub celebration.

Knopfler and Cooder, both vocalists with limited ranges, were skillfully ushered into comfortable settings for their contributions. The great Irish balladeer Paul Brady joins Knopfler on guitar for "The Lily of the West," which Knopfler half-narrates over a structure borrowed from Brady's version of a similar ballad, "The Lakes of Pontchartrain." Moloney managed to make Cooder feel enough at home with the haunting Irish ballad "Coast of Malabar" that this version has an almost calypso feel.

Old friend Van Morrison fits hand in glove with the Chieftains on his own "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?," while Sting is similarly at home singing Gaelic on the Scottish air "Mo Ghile Mear." Marianne Faithfull's weathered, worldly delivery is tailor-made for the parting lament "Love Is Teasin'."

Moloney's greatest collaboration is with Sinéad O'Connor, who gives herself over completely to both the material and Moloney's sensitive direction. Unfettered, her magnificent voice soars purely through the dramatic melody of the martial elegy "The Foggy Dew" and stops time on the dreamlike traditional ballad "He Moved Through the Fair."

The Chieftains continue to expand the traditional vocabulary, with Matt Molloy and Seán Keane composing the reels of "Ferny Hill" and band vocalist Kevin Conneff adding a tribute to contemporary Ireland, "Changing Your Demeanour." Conneff also sings on "The Rocky Road to Dublin," with the Rolling Stones joining the fray. When the Chieftains jigged into the improvisational section against the sustained chords of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and a Keith Richards/Ron Wood guitar duel, Moloney lost control of the proceedings. With characteristic wisdom, he did the only thing a good producer can under the circumstances: Let the tape roll on. (RS 701)

JOHN SWENSON