Tom's most important skill was as a guitar player and banjo player and it was his mastery of those two instruments during his time with John Cohen and Mike Seeger during the late 50's early 60's which influenced so many people to take up the music. Several big name musicians cite him as an influence and some took a lesson or two from him. Many of his friends would despair after he took up the fiddle and only very rarely played either of the two instruments on which he excelled. Over the many years that I have picked with him - not professionally I might add, the cry often came up "for xxxx'x sake put down the fiddle and play the banjo". All to no avail of course. At a tune session we always had to make sure that the pause between tunes was pretty brief otherwise he would start a Swedish tune that nobody else knew or could play or was even interested in.
He has certainly left a big hole in the London club and pub session scene and will be sorely missed.