Great musicians reach across many genres and influence people you just would not think would be listening.
Like most of us in the 70's, FRAGILE and the first single 'RoundAbout' made big impressions. I was working in a music store, and a local black bassist who was already a slap/pop master was a regular customer, he could Bootsy and Stanley and Larry Graham and Louis Johnson you to death, just fabulous at it and fingerstyle ala' Jamerson as well. One of my favorite guys and players, he just had 'it' for days.
He came in one day, and 'RoundAbout' was playing on the FM radio feed we kept playing as background music. So he picks up an axe and plugs in, and begins playing it, letter-perfect, in slap, and it was just hair-curling. Not funked up, but Squire's lines precisely. He went on to rave about Squire, pointed out the cooler little bits that told me he'd really woodshedded this. And his slap tone was obviously not unlike Squire's tone on the recording. What a blast !
I later begged him to teach me to slap 'The Wanton Song', but we never got 'round to it.
So when it comes to great players, you just never know WHO's digging on it.
Joey