"Who're your influences?"

Reading about the memorial service and gig on 21st June for Dave McHale, a musician who sometimes played saxophone with the Boomtown Rats (and was apparently known as the '7th Rat'), who died in Germany in May, reminded me of his interesting, indirect influence on the Folk Club.
In an article he wrote for a compilation by writers. poets and artists of memories of the music that influenced them in their youth*, Lar Cassidy talks about getting interested in Blues music at the age of 12. One of his school mates at Blackrock College at the time was Dave McHale and he credits him with 'stretching (my) taste' and introducing him to Oscar Peterson and Art Blakey, and then letting him hear 'Cannonball' Adderley, Ornette Coleman and Archie Shepp. He writes that Dave McHale's mother was a fine classical pianist who could also play traditional solo jazz piano and as a result her son had advanced musical tastes at an early age.
Those of us who spent late nights in Cassidys 'playroom' will know that this interest in all kinds of jazz and blues was passed on by Lar to many others. It also shone through in the many blues and jazz artists Lar invited to play the Folk Club and his openness to all kinds of experimental and progressive music.

*"My Generation - Rock 'n' Roll Remembered: An imperfect history" edited by Antony Farrell, Vivienne Guinness & Julian Lloyd, The Lilliput Press, 1996.