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Herbie Flowers
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| Birth name | Brian Keith Flowers |
| Born | (1938-05-19) 19 May 1938 |
| Occupation(s) | Instrumentalist |
| Instruments | Bass guitar, double-bass, tuba |
| Years active | 1956-present |
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Brian Keith “Herbie” Flowers (born 19 May 1938, in Isleworth, Middlesex) is an English musician specialising in bass guitar, double-bass and tuba. He is noted as a member of Blue Mink, T. Rex and Sky and as one of Britain’s best-known session bass-players, having contributed to recordings by Elton John (Tumbleweed Connection etc.), David Bowie (Space Oddity/Diamond Dogs), Lou Reed (Transformer including the prominent bass line of “Walk on the Wild Side”), Melanie (Candles in the Rain etc.), Roy Harper, David Essex, Allan Clarke, Al Kooper, Harry Nilsson (including bass on “Jump into the Fire”), Cat Stevens, Serge Gainsbourg, Paul McCartney and George Harrison: he also played bass on Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. By the end of the 1970s Flowers had played bass on an estimated 500 hit recordings.
Perhaps Flowers’ most famous bass line is the one he created for Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” from the album Transformer (1972), the only song by Reed to reach the Top 20 in the US.
After completing his military service he passed through the line-ups of several Dixieland jazz bands in the early 1960s, then discovered modern jazz. In 1965 he was engaged as a bandsman on the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth. In New York, after hearing a jazz electric bass in a night club, he acquired his own solid-body electric instrument, a Lake Placid Blue 1960 Fender Jazz Bass that he purchased from Manny’s in New York City for $79.
Later in the 1960s Flowers began to acquire his reputation as a session player, working for record producers such as Shel Talmy, Mickie Most, Steve Rowland, Richard Perry, Gus Dudgeon, and Tony Visconti.
“In 1967 David Bowie had to do these recordings for the BBC, and Tony Visconti said, “We need a bass player, I know what, there’s this bloke called Herbie Flowers – that’s a much better name than David Richmond, or Lesley Hurdle.”, So I was asked to do the job. But, because I was more interested in jazz, I didn’t play what was expected. Gus Dudgeon and David Bowie quite liked that slippery, slipping and sliding-about feel, so I was flavour of the month for 20 years”
Bass Stuff 