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http://accordions.com/news.aspx?d=26-Feb-2021&lang=en&s=17318
http://accordions.com/news.aspx?d=26-Feb-2021&lang=en&s=17318
26-Feb-2021
Joe Burke (1939-2021), Galway – Republic of Irelandby Rob Howard |
  Video: Recorded in Listowel, Ireland in 1995.President of Ireland Michael D Higgins leads tributes: “The news of the death of Joe Burke, distinguished and influential accordion player, will have saddened countless music lovers and fans of traditional Irish music, at home in Ireland and much further afield. His legacy, not only the great archive of his music but also the love for music that he kindled among countless young musicians, will continue to inspire.” - President Michael D Higgins. Born 1939 in Kilnadeema, County Galway, Joe Burke began playing the 2-row BC diatonic button accordion at the age of four. He won the All-Ireland Senior Accordion Championship at the Flead Cheoil in 1959 and again in 1960. Together with fiddler Aggie Whyte, he won the All-Ireland duet championship in 1962. He was also a superb flautist, and in the 1980s recorded a flute-harp duet album, ‘The Tailor’s Choice’, with the renowned harpist Máire Ní Chathasaigh. Joe Burke was RTÉ's Traditional Musician of the Year in 1970 and again 1997. In 1956 Joe Burke was a founding member of the Leitrim Ceili Band, and he first toured in the USA in 1961, living in New York from 1962 to 1965. During this time he formed a trio with fiddler Andy McGann and pianist Felix Dolan, with whom he recorded an LP, ‘A Tribute to Michael Coleman’, first released in 1966 on his own Shaskeen Label and would later record again with this trio, issuing ‘The Funny Reel’ LP on the Shanachie Label in 1979. Other musical collaborators over the years have included the great Belfast fiddler Sean Maguire, piper Michael Cooney, harpist Máire Ní Chathasaigh, fiddler Kevin Burke, pianist Charlie Lennon, and his wife Anne Conroy Burke, a guitarist and accordionist, whom he married in 1990. Joe Burke's first solo album, ‘Galway's Own’, was released in 1971 and he also toured extensively for the next two decades, including with groups sponsored by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann. From 1988 to 1991 he lived in St.Louis, Missouri, and had a musical residency at John D. McGurk's pub as well as hosting radio programmes at two stations, one of them the ‘Ireland in America’ programme on KDHX. He represented Ireland in 1989 and 1992 at the International Accordion Festival in Montmagny, Quebec, Canada along with other accordion greats who included Cajun player Marc Savoy and jazz accordionist Art Van Damme. Joe Burke returned to live in Kilnadeema, Galway, in 1992, where he continued to teach and perform music. One of Ireland’s most admired accordionists and a legend of Irish traditional music, Joe Burke passed away on February 20th 2021 at the age of 81, and was widely mourned. |