At week's end tragedy interrupted the otherwise sublime week in the Catskills when Boston accordion player and raconteur, Joe Joyce, "The People's Choice," suffered a massive heart attack and passed away on Sunday evening at nearby Albany General Hospital. In his early seventies, the colorful mainstay of Boston's Irish music scene going back to the Dudley Street Days (Read Susan Gudetis' important Boston history called See You at the Hall) had enjoyed himself along with his wife Karin and daughter Catherine, a fine young musician in her own right, at all the week's events until he took ill on Saturday.

New Yorkers had a chance to experience the truly one of a kind personality he had last month at Rory Dolan's when he performed with Catherine at the fundraiser for Annemarie Acosta's School of Music.

He will definitely be missed and our sincere condolences go out to his grieving widow and daughter. He will be waked at Gormley Funeral Home on Wednesday and Thursday and buried on Friday after a funeral Mass at St. Theresa's Church in West Roxbury at 10 a.m.