Kevin Burke has written a song. It may not sound like a big deal, but—though he’s a natural storyteller—the legendary Irish fiddler has never penned one before in a long career winding back to his teens in London in the ’60s. That was an exciting time and place for the development of Irish music, and recently a songwriting friend offered to help Burke turn his memories of those years into a ditty.

“We came up with ‘London Town’—about the thousands of people like my parents who left Ireland after the war and settled in London and felt a bit adrift as any immigrant would,” says Burke, reached at his home in Portland, Oregon. “Traditional music was the unifying thing for them and lifted up their spirits when times were hard.”

Burke absorbed the songs and airs he heard on the family record player and in the Irish community, while at the same time studying classical violin. And there was much other music around to inspire him. “My parents were from Sligo [on the north-west coast of Ireland] and there was a steady diet of music from there. But by the time I was 15 or 16, I’d go out with my schoolmates to hear bands like Manfred Mann, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, maybe on a Friday night—then Saturday and Sunday it was Irish music in the Irish pubs. I didn’t see it as incongruous at all.”

Soon after leaving school, Burke, already a champion fiddler, joined feisty singer Christy Moore’s band and then the hugely influential Bothy Band, a tradition-based outfit with rock-’n’-roll attitude and drive. After the Bothies split up, Burke moved to Portland, where he’s forged a solo career, as well as cofounding the groups Open House, Patrick Street, and Celtic Fiddle Festival. His presence in Oregon has boosted Celtic music on the West Coast in a major way.

On this Vancouver visit Burke will perform solo, the way Irish music was played until the mid-’60s. “A lot of people don’t realize or maybe have forgotten that it was unaccompanied, and if there was more than one musician they’d probably be playing in unison. The odd time there might be piano accompaniment, but it was very rare to see a guitar—and in most cases it wasn’t welcome. The older people I knew weren’t comfortable with it.

“I thought it would be fun to remind people what Irish music was like in its natural state, so I started doing solo concerts, and despite some initial resistance I get many bookings along the lines ‘Would you mind not bringing an accompanist?’ I find it kind of liberating—and challenging because if anything goes wrong you know who to blame. I like to talk about where the tunes came from, the characters I met when learning them, and why I think they’re deserving of an airing. I also play pieces from related traditions in North America, Scandinavia, and other Celtic lands. And I may do ‘London Town’ in Vancouver, but people can relax—I definitely won’t attempt any Stones or Kinks songs,” Burke stresses, with a chuckle.

Kevin Burke performs at St. James Hall on Sunday (October 4).