Born in Boston to Irish immigrant parents, Joe Derrane stands among the premier button accordion players in Celtic music's annals. He cut a collection of Irish melodies onto 78 rpm discs throughout the 1940s and 1950s yet vanished from the traditional scene prior to his 1994 appearance at the Irish Folk Festival held at Wolf Trap Farm Park for Performing Arts in Vienna, Virginia. This comeback gig came on the heels of the album Irish Accordion, which revisited sixteen pieces he had laid down in his teenage years. Following his resurgence, Derrane issued three further recordings: the 1995 effort Give Us Another, supported by Irish pianist Felix Dolan; the 1996 release Return to Inis Mor, which included pianist Carl Hession from Moving Cloud along with a string quartet. Its title track, among four originals on that disc, evoked his forebears' island residence in Galway Bay. Issued in 1998, The Tie That Binds showcased Derrane on a fresh 23-key, two-row button accordion of his own co-design, backed by Frankie Gavin, Zan McLeod, Seamus Egan, and Jerry O'Sullivan.
As the eldest among three siblings, Derrane was raised in a household filled with music. Accordion and melodeon were his father's instruments while his mother played the violin. Regular exposure to Boston's Irish radio broadcasts fueled his admiration for Jerry O'Brien, a melodeon player formerly with Joe O'Leary's Irish Minstrels, prompting his parents to arrange lessons with the musician. Instruction under O'Brien commenced when Derrane reached ten and lasted two years, during which he spent five years mastering the single-row accordion. Turning fifteen, he took up the piano accordion and acquired music-reading skills, becoming an ardent follower of the Brooklyn-born diatonic accordionist John J. Kimmel, known as "The Irish Dutchman," whose entire body of work he absorbed.
In his final year at Mission High School in Roxbury, Derrane committed sixteen solo pieces to record alongside pianist Johnny Connor. Between 1948 and 1949 he captured ten duet performances with his former mentor O'Brien. Although he spent 1952 and 1953 residing in New York, Derrane came back to Boston where he became a staple on the ballroom dance scene. Throughout the late 1940s into the early 1950s he appeared alongside ensembles including Johnny Powell's Irish Dance Band, the Stars of Erin, the Galway Bay Band, the Irish All-Stars, and the All-Star Ceili Band.
Having pursued six months of study in harmonics and arranging at the Schillinger House, which later became the Berklee College of Music, Derrane went on to play with various groups focused on Jewish and Italian repertoires.
