Paddy On The Hardwood by Rus Bradburd

Remember when I wrote about a session I was at in Belfast where I was sitting next to a fiddler who it turned out had written a book and then I ended up reading the book? Quite an unusual occurrence, right? Definitely not the kind of thing that’s likely to happen twice (you can see where this is going…) During the Fleadh, I went to quite a few sessions at Cumann Cultúrtha Mhic Reachtain. I ended up chatting to a fiddler named Rus from New Mexico. He told me about a book he had written twenty years previously about his time in Kerry coaching a basketball team and learning Irish music. I had heard of this book! I can’t remember where exactly, but there aren’t that many books with a connection to traditional Irish music, so it’s no surprise that it was on my radar. Anyway, Rus very kindly sent me a copy to read. It’s called Paddy On The Hardwood. While it’s ostensibly a mix of basketball and trad, it’s actually about 90% basketball and 10% trad. But that 10% is great. Rus was learning…