He was noted for being a pre-eminent button accordion player, recording and performing traditional music for over half a century.
[4][6] Other members of the east Galway-base band, which won All-Ireland Championships in 1959 and 1962, included flute players Paddy Carty, Ambrose Moloney and Tony Molloy; button accordionists Mick Darcy and Sean McGlynn; fiddlers Michael Joe Dooley, Paddy Doorhy, Aggie Whyte and Séamus Connolly; drummer Sean Curley and pianist Anne-Marie Courtney.
With McGann and pianist Felix Dolan, he recorded an LP, A Tribute to Michael Coleman, first released in 1966 on Burke's own Shaskeen label.
Other musical collaborators over the years have included Belfast fiddle great Sean McGuire, piper Michael Cooney, harper Máire Ní Chathasaigh, fiddler Kevin Burke, pianist Charlie Lennon and his wife Anne Conroy Burke (guitar, button accordion), whom he married in 1990.
[4] A Joe Burke Tribute Concert was held in April 1997 at the Town Hall Theatre in Galway, on his reception of the AIB award.