Fiddler and founding member of the Fusiliers, Rus Bradburd studied with legendary Irish fiddler Paddy Jones while coaching the Tralee Tigers to the 2004 National Basketball Championship. A writer by day, his Irish adventures is chronicled in his book Paddy on the Hardwood. He also holds the distinction of being, possibly, the only former NCAA Basketball coach who is not a golfer but is a fiddle player.
Bob Deitner, our other founding member and our resident mandolin player. Bob is our fish expert and also plays regularly with bluegrass bands throughout New Mexico and West Texas. For years he has plied the back roads of Texas and New Mexico looking for the old time musicians and listening to their stories and playing their tunes with them.
Bill Bussman is known far and narrow as the Father of Old Wave Mandolins and the resident Troll of Old Wave Holler. Early on, through a grant from the New Mexico Arts and Culture council he built fiddles with buffalo heads carved on the scroll. When he discovered that Yitzhak Perlman wasn’t likely to buy one he started earning trillions collecting aluminum cans along NM highway 152.
Marc Robert plays clawhammer or mountain style banjo. He is defensive about his day job as a Defense Attorney. Marc also plays guitar with the O’Keefe brothers and bass with the Boiled Buzzards. He can also cite chapter and verse of the frustration of trying to catch the wily Gila Trout on a fly line.
Guitarist Greg Gendall is the newest addition to the Fusiliers coming from years of plowing the fields of Bluegrass music up and down the East Coast. Following the historic advice given to musicians,”Never quit your day job”, he restores old adobe casitas and houses and cleans up after renters (picture Schneider the Handyman on the 60’s TV show) He also plays with Dan Levenson and the Boiled Buzzards.