Apr

17

Herbie Flowers

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Herbie Flowers (born Brian Keith Flowers, 19 May 1938, in Isleworth, Middlesex) is an English studio musician specialising in bass guitar, double-bass and tuba, who came to prominence performing with David Bowie and Elton John, and then later Lou Reed. It is his bass that opens Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” and underpins Bowie’s “Space Oddity” as well as the Harry Nilsson song “Jump into the Fire” . He also played bass on Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds.

In 1969 Flowers co-founded the group Blue Mink and played on their song “Melting Pot”, which reached #3 in the UK Singles Chart. He was a member of CCS, and later featured in a mid-1970s line-up of T. Rex. In 1979 he became a co-founder of the band Sky, which had considerable success in the United Kingdom. Since the band’s demise in the early 1990s Flowers has spent most of his time playing jazz. He also works as a bass guitar teacher, and leads many ‘rockshops’ at schools, helping children to create and perform their own songs, as well as covering many others.

Flowers is also known for having composed the novelty hit “Grandad” for Clive Dunn, a fact that has tended to overshadow his many other achievements. According to Flowers on the BBC Radio 2 show Jammin’, he came up with it after following an easy primer book on composing. All he needed was a hook, and he was struggling to come up with anything. He phoned a friend (Ken Pickett) who came round, ringing the doorbell, and the ding-dong from the doorbell provided the hook he needed.

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