Joseph Martin Reavy, of Malvern, Pennsylvania, son of Philadelphia’s renowned “plumber of hornpipes,” Ed Reavy, died January 13, 2023. He was 95.

Joe was the recipient of Mid-Atlantic Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann’s Gradam Comaoine/Outstanding Contribution Award, conferred at the 2019 Comhaltas Mid-Atlantic Region’s Hall of Fame Banquet. 

Joe Reavy was a talented multi-instrumentalist in his own right, but his most valuable contribution to traditional Irish music undoubtedly was his project to collect and transcribe his father’s many tunes into a thick book of sheet music.

Asked about that contribution, Joe was characteristically self-effacing.

“I don’t want to put myself in the forefront,” he said in a 2019 interview. “This is my father’s music. I published it so people would know it. He had an unbelievable musical memory, but my father did not write out the music. 

“Of course, I read music and so I did most of the work, unless it was very, very technical stuff, and then I would call on someone else to help with it. Musicians—especially among advocates and people who loved his music—welcomed this (compilation) because they could put it in front of other musicians who maybe didn’t know too much about Irish music. I spent two years’ time with my father; almost every week we worked on it. It was just wonderful working with him. I learned so much. Even though he didn’t know how to write out the music, he knew how to talk about music. He had the greatest memory for tunes.”