Had the wheel of fortune spun ever so slightly differently, Paddy Keenan might today be known as the man who kept the Beatles together. Then again, he could be a respected singer-guitarist, on a par with his Irish contemporaries Paul Brady and Christy Moore. Or, just as easily, he could be lying in the cold, cold ground.

Instead, though, Keenan’s survived hard times, fame, and a fumbled encounter with the Fab Four to become one of the greatest virtuosos of the uilleann pipes, Ireland’s smaller, bellows-driven version of the more familiar Highland pipes. On the line from his adopted home in New Hampshire, he sounds settled and happy—and yet he still finds himself in some unusual places.

Most recently, he’s been in West Africa, shooting Dearbhla Glynn’s documentary Dambé: The Mali Project alongside Hothouse Flowers singer Liam Ó Maonlaí, kora virtuoso Toumani Diabaté, and Ali Farka Touré protégé Afel Bocoum, among others. Part travelogue, part concert film, and part ethnomusicological treatise, Dambé asks the question: “How can we connect with other cultures?” And the answer, for Keenan, is no surprise.

“It was an amazing experience, meeting all the tribal people,” he tells the Straight, noting with a laugh that, before the journey, he’d thought Timbuktu as mythical as Xanadu. “Of course, the kids would run away from me when I’d take the pipes out, because some of them hadn’t ever seen a white man, never mind pipes, you know? Then they’d swarm to it and take out their little drums and join in.”

Music proved the link between Keenan, Ó Maonlaí, and their African hosts, in the process reminding the piper of something he’d learned from his musician father.

“When I was a young lad, my dad taught me the pipes and other instruments, and all of my siblings as well,” he recalls. “I remember him saying that he didn’t have a whole lot to give us, but he’d give us music and that would be a great help to us. We’d never really go hungry, even if we had to sit on the side of the road and busk with it. But he also said that it would cross all language barriers, and you could really see that there. The music was the language, at least for the initial breakthrough with the people there. And I’ve had that before in Asia and other parts of the world. Music is what’s brought me around the world, it’s helped me communicate with people, and it’s fed myself and my family.”

Keenan grew up in a Traveller household, the Travellers being the nomads who helped preserve Irish music during the centuries-long English occupation. But traditional music wasn’t always his focus. During the tumultuous ’60s, he fell in love with the blues, took up the guitar, and made his living busking on the streets of London. And although he was too conflicted about his roots to bring his pipes when a mutual friend wanted him to jam with the Beatles, the invitation rekindled his interest in the music of his childhood. This, in turn, led to the formation of the near-legendary Bothy Band, whose aggressive, rock-inflected approach helped kick-start the Irish folk revival of the 1970s and ’80s. Keenan doesn’t deny that he enjoyed the byproducts of stardom, but now that he’s entering his sober 60s he’s come back to the notion that it’s the music that matters.

“Today, I find myself playing with far more feeling than a lot of the time when I was in Ireland,” he says. “Of course, I was younger, so it was one big party.”¦If I’d stayed in Ireland, I would have ended up pretty sick, or dead. But when I got to the States I sort of settled more, and the music has benefited from that.”

Paddy Keenan and guitarist Padraic Conroy play St. James Hall on Friday (April 15).