"I recently met them during the shooting of The Man Who Cried. For me they are a model in the way they approach life. Despite all that they went through — I'm talking about racism against Gypsies which went on for centuries and still exists today — these guys can play a music which express the most intense joy. They have this gift to make you feel alive. They are among the most extraordinary people I ever met." — Johnny Depp (in Studio Magazine, France, Jan. 2000)

The first time I came across the band Taraf de Haidouks, I didn't even know who they were. I had taken a video,Latcho Drom, out of the library that traced the travels of gypsies or Roma from their beginnings in India, through the middle east to the west of Europe.

One of the stops the video made was in a small town in Romania. Since my mother's family had immigrated form Romania in the 1800's I tend to pay attention a little more when it's being talked about. The clip opened with an elderly man sitting under a tree singing, in a cracked and mournful voice, about the oppressiveness of the former communist regime.

The next scene showed the band members leaving their homes and gathering in the central square of their little village to perform. The old man from under the tree was joined by a variety of other musicians to play some of the, literally, wildest music I've ever heard. Like a runaway horse, it took off and careened out of control until as suddenly as it started it stopped. It was breathtaking.

Somehow or other I missed seeing the name of that band and they remained a mystery to me until about two years ago when my wife and I rented the movie The Man Who Cried. Set in Paris in the days before the German invasion, and in the first days of the occupation, the central character is a young Jewish woman (Christina Ricci) looking to reunite with her father.

One of the people she meets is a gypsy (Johnny Depp). He and his troupe of followers have ended up in Paris moving away from the Germans. At one point the young woman goes back to the gypsy's camp where they gather to play music. The people playing were the same people from the tiny Romanian village.

From the credits I was able to find out the name of this wonderful band and in turn do a search for them on the web. The number one result from Google was the web site for the Band Of Gypsies CD. The site told the story of how this album came about.