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 Like most professional musicians, Kevin Burke has spent a good portion of his life on the road, and his travels have taken him on a long and interesting musical journey. Burke was born in London, England, to parents who came from County Sligo in Ireland, an area known for its unique style of fiddle music. Frequent trips to visit relatives in Ireland immersed him in Sligo music and, by the age of 13, he was playing with Irish musical groups. For a time, he pursued a job on the London Stock Exchange but eventually came back to music. "Music kept interfering with every angle of life," Burke said. "Then I realized it wasn't music that was getting in the way, it was everything else." In Ireland he ran into Arlo Guthrie, who heard him perform and invited him to Los Angeles to play on Guthrie's Last of the Brooklyn Cowboys album in 1972. After performing with Irish musician Christy Moore, Burke joined the seminal group, The Bothy Band. In 1979, Burke left Ireland to re-settle in Portland, Oregon, and for the past 20 years he has been a fixture in the northwestern United States. Initially, Burke teamed up with former Bothy Band member Michael O Domhnaill, and then went on to form two influential bands: the traditional Celtic supergroup, Patrick Street, and the more eclectic ensemble, Open House. Today his name is synonymous with Irish fiddle music around the world.
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