Music comes first with Joe Burke
By Kerry L. Bryan
Special to The Irish American Post

Joe Burke never seems in a hurry. To meet him is to feel immediately at home. He is a comfortable presence, a white-haired, solid figure of a man, soft-spoken and good-humored. Then you watch and listen to him play his button accordion — and you are in awe that those fingers can move so fast yet with such precision.

Born in 1939 in Kilnadeema, Loughrea, in east Co. Galway, Joe Burke was steeped in the rich musical traditions of his family and locality. His Uncle Pat, himself a well-known accordionist, started teaching the boy tunes when he was barely 4. Burke remembered the occasion well. "I already had the tunes in my head, but my uncle showed me how to use the instrument," he said. His fingers felt immediately at home, the music came easily. Uncle Pat only had to show him once how to play a tune, then Joe would have it.

His life as a child revolved around farming, music and hurling. "But the music always came first. Music was the main recreationŠ and it was recreation. It was never intended to be what it turned out to be for me, to be on the road as a musician. That wasn't on the agenda at all."

His hardworking farmer father would give him what shillings he could so that Joe could buy 78s to listen to on the Burkes' wind-up Victrola: he spent hours and hours listening to the recordings of Michael Coleman, James Morrison, Michael Grogan, German accordionist John Kimbell and others. 

Little Joe would play along with his mother, uncle, and neighbors during Sunday night set dances. By age 10, he was bicycling around the countryside to wherever the music was to be found. He left school at age 14 to work on the farm, but the music soon called him farther afield. and he began winning the competitions at Comhaltas fleadhs.

The fleadhs featured some mighty sessions. Burke met and played with musicians from all over Ireland, including such greats as Leo Rowsome, Paddy Canny, Elizabeth Crotty, Willie Clancy, John Joe Garner and his sister Kathleen Harrington, P.J. Hayes, Paddy O'Brien, Kevin Keegan, Ciaran Kelly and Sean McGuire.

These musical sessions also prepared him for concerts. His first was "a little bit of a thing" in his hometown when he was about 15. "I wouldn't go up on the stage. I sat in the front row and played with my back to the audience. My fingers felt frozen with fear," he recalled with a laugh.

He soon got over that terror and by the next year he had organized the Leitrim Ceili Band. "All eight members were tremendous musicians," he indicated. The Leitrim Ceili Band performed around Ireland , made a few recordings and eventually won two All-Ireland titles. As a soloist, Burke won the All-Ireland in 1949 and 1950, taking several duet and trio categories, as well.

Producer Sean O'Riorda encouraged Burke so he eventually cut the last two 78s ever made in Europe in 1958 on the Gael Linn label. These were untitled, solo recordings. "They popped the mike in front of me and that was it," Burke pointed out. 

Said Burke of O'Riorda, "He popularized the music in a positive way. He knew the place the music should have, where it fitted, and how far he could go with innovation —he always stuck within the boundaries of the music." 

Burke then added, "When people lose sight of the boundaries, lose touch with the traditional, they take the beauty out of it" and commented wryly, "Some of them today should be given speeding tickets."
But back to that Joe Burke of 40 years ago — his world kept expanding. He was earning little bits of money as a musician but his mainstay was still farming. That ended in 1961 when he was invited by Sean O'Siochain to tour in the United States.

On that first tour, his seven-person group traveled to 16 cities to play dance halls. Boston was their first stop. "I was amazed at the traffic, the size of the cars, the heat and humidity," he said because he had just gotten electricity a few years earlier and still had no car at home in Ireland.

Burke bounced back and forth across the Atlantic for the next few years, touring extensively with Andy McGann and Felix Dolan, in addition to Kevin Burke and Michael O'Dohnaill. However, he always considered himself a visitor. Home was and still is East Galway.

When Burke returned to Ireland in 1965 after a three-year Stateside stint, he found that changes were taking place in the music scene at home. The Clancys and Dubliners had popularized the songs and the music was moving out of the homes and into the pubs. 

The Irish music scene had also grown vibrant in England and Scotland where Burke traveled frequently. He often toured those countries with Belfast fiddler Sean McGuire. But he also knew Bobby Casey, Raymond Roland, Roger Sherlock, as well as many others who sparked the Irish music scene around London.

In the '70s and through the '80s, Burke again spent more and more time in America. He was based for a while in New York, then moved St. Louis where he had a steady gig with Kevin Burke at the legendary McGurk's Pub. 

"Oh, everyone was there, they'd be passing through, you know," he said, adding that he traveled all over the States and beyond to play at concerts, festivals, or whatever. "All," as he put it with a twinkle, "the same old story."

That "same old story" has included solo performances at New York's Carnegie Hall New York, The Royal Albert Hall in London, the Unuesque Hall in Paris and the American Music Hall in San Francisco.

Burke returned to home to stay in 1995. He is now living in the house where he grew up, with the families of the neighborhood still the same. "I feel as if I'd never left. So I'm home now, but still touring more than ever." 

And still recording as well. In the past, he made many recordings with Gael Linn, Outlet, Shanachie and Shaskeen and his early solo albums are considered collectors' items. In recent years, he has been recording on the Green Linnet label.

Burke has also recorded with Andy McGann and Felix Dolan, Sean Maguire and Josephine Keegan, Michael Coone and Terry Corcoran, Charlie Lennon, Frankie Gavin, Kevin Burke, Brian Conway, Noreen O'Donaghue, Mike Rafferty, Joannie Madden, Marie Ni Chathasaigh and more. At last year's Milwaukee Irish Fest, Burke and his old friend Sean Maguire performed together for the first time in five years. 
As Burke explained, a musician has a special memory for other musicians. Though years may go by between gigs or sessions, he can sit down with someone like Andy McGann or Sean McGuire and play the tunes as they did together perhaps 40 years ago. Said Burke, "You wouldn't forget them." 

That phrase would seem to sum it all up— the musicians' special connections, the enduring quality of the tunes, and the names of the legendary players. 

Joe Burke, you are one of those names.