Paddy on the Turnpike (Ostroushko)

The first time I met Peter Ostroushko I was just out of college and beginning to make my way as a performer/teacher. I recognized him in the airport and having a copy of my home-recorded first album with me, I ran over and handed it to him. 15 years later when I met him for the second time when playing in a Christmas performance together he remembered that time, saying “you appeared out of nowhere.” So, if nothing else my fresh-faced and over-eager introduction of myself proved memorable!

As you may know, Peter passed away in the beginning of this 2021, after some years of increasing health problems. In the final years he couldn’t play music anymore, but still taught mandolin students and produced a podcast looking back on his experiences with Prairie Home Companion called My Life as a Radio Musician, and was reportedly in good spirits.

I feel lucky to have crossed paths with him briefly while he was still alive. He seemed like someone full of good humor and warmth which, naturally, seeped through in his playing. The approach he took definitely has some virtuosity, but it seems like the core of it was something else. I get the feeling what he chose to play isn’t as complex as it could be, so the quality that gives it is elegance, tastefulness. He also believed, from what I gather, that the act of playing music can have a spiritual quality, if you want it to.

Here is his wonderful setting of Paddy on the Turnpike. It uses has some great mixed mode riffs, and this some surprising little twists and turns. Actually, it’s never quite the same twice on the recording, so I had to pick and choose a bit as to what the core of the tune was.