"But there is more to Tommie Potts than his retreat from commercial public exposure. Otherwise his one commercial recorded album, The Liffey Banks, would not have been taken to the collective bosom of traditional musicians regardless of whether they play fiddles or pipes. Potts was certainly plugged in to SOMETHING, and it is that connection, as much as or more than the factor of isolation, that separates him from other musicians."

For me, hearing the RTE Tommie Potts album lifted the veil quite considerably. Just hearing him play many more tunes... many of them are played a lot more straight than his playing on The Liffey Banks.

Also, it was only in the last year that I heard Sean Keane's 70s solo fiddle album album 'Gusty's Frolics'. It struck me as very Tommy Pottsish at moments - not so much that Keane was being literally influenced by Potts' playing, more just hearing another instance of someone unafraid of breaking stylistic rules, unafraid of introducing idiosyncratic violin techniques from classical music etc etc.

The more I listen to Irish traditional music, the less and less strange Potts sounds.