Burke in Beauly
 

The Arts Journal catches up with the great Irish fiddle player KEVIN BURKE as he makes a rare solo appearance in Beauly
 

ARTS JOURNAL: Kevin, you have just finished a tour in the USA with Celtic Fiddle Festival, a group you shared with Soig Siberil from Brittany and the late Johnny Cunningham. Johnny’s death must have cast a shadow over the tour?

KEVIN BURKE: It was terrible news. He was a close musical colleague and a dear friend for many years, and to have him taken away so suddenly is a source of great sadness, but his music lives on, and we have many wonderful memories. There was definitely a tinge of sadness hanging over this tour, but it went really well. We had Andre Brunet from La Bottine Souriante with us, and he is a young, very upbeat guy. I think the fact that he wasn’t from Scotland deflected some of the feeling of how do we fill Johnny’s shoes. We thought a lot about it, and the more we thought about it, we felt that bringing in another Scottish player was going to bring an emotional toll at this stage.
 

KB: Patrick Street is very much an Irish band, while in Celtic Fiddle Festival the object of the game is to present how distinct each of the different styles are, then when we play together we try to highlight how there are several links. The first half of the show is typically solo things to emphasise the separate traditions, then we try to bring out the connections when we play together. In Patrick Street, even if we play something that isn’t quite Irish, there is an Irish spin on it, and in that sense its appeal is maybe narrower in the music we play, but it’s a real band. Celtic Fiddles is a bit different, but that is part of its appeal – people seem intrigued by the fact that it’s all fiddles.
 

AJ: How did Patrick Street come about?

KB: In the mid-80s I was considering moving back to Ireland from the USA. I used to play now and again with Jackie Daly, and I had worked with Gerry O'Beirne quite a bit too, and Andy Irvine now and again. Andy and Gerry were doing a tour as a duo and I met up with them somewhere on the road, and they invited me to join the rest of the tour as a trio. We did that, and it worked quite well, and we were saying we should do a proper tour now. I was up for it, but for the instrumentals I felt it was a bit top heavy with the two rhythm players and just me, and suggested another melody player for the tunes, which is when the idea of getting Jackie in came up. At the same time Gerry was feeling he didn’t really want to be in a band on a regular basis, and I was still thinking about moving back to Ireland, so having a band based over there seemed a good idea. Andy and Jackie suggested Artie McGlynn as a guitar player. I didn’t really know Artie at the time, but we go together and it sounded great. We made a record, did half a gig in Galway, and hit the road in the States. It’s been going ever since. Ged Foley took over from Artie, and has been in the band for nearly ten years now, I would think.