Guitar, keyboards, bass, composer. A prolific session player during the '70s, Barry Finnerty came to New York from the West Coast in 1973. He'd studied classical piano as a child, taken guitar lessons as a teen and briefly attended Berklee in 1971. Finnerty joined Chico Hamilton in 1974, and later that year worked with Airto and Flora Purim. He joined the Joe Farrell quartet in 1975, and later did sessions and recorded with Hamilton, Hubert Laws, The Tower of Power and the group Beefy Red. Finnerty appeared at the Montreux and Monterey Festivals in the mid-'70s playing with Hamilton and Airto respectively. ~ Ron Wynn