Tommie Potts died before the Mudcat Café came to be. (1912 - 1988)

This Dubliner's name caught my attention recently, because I was reading about Irish traditional music and musicians; and what is striking about a fiddler who went to his reward over twenty-five years ago, is that other musicians are passionate and ardent about his work. This is a man who avoided public exposure, and had to be approached respectfully and with care if he was to respond at all; and those who speak of him agree that he lived for music.

The comments I will quote here, date from 1996 actually, from the 1996 Crossroads Conference in Dublin at the Temple Bar Music Centre. Everybody else is welcome to weigh in with posts to this thread.

Ronan Browne, piper:
Tommie Potts to me was one of the most amazing musicians that ever lived and probably ever will, and people say he was ahead of his time, he was misunderstood, not recognized -- and he was all of those things;
but what it was about Tommie was that he understood -- to me -- he understood the background of Irish music completely, but he also understood classical music and jazz....

Davy Spillane, piper:
The musicians who had a huge effect on me were Johnny Doran and Tommie Potts. Well, Tommie just knocked me out -- I couldn't really describe him....but what astounded me is that everybody put it down so badly around traditional circles; I couldn't believe it. But a lot of people who put it down, I hear them playing very much in his style now -- about fifteen years later -- it's amazing: the ferocious Tommie Potts influence breaking out all of a sudden.

The preceding comments were quoted at the Conference from the television series "River of Sound," Hummingbird Productions.