Herbie Flowers, Bassist on Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ and Songs by David Bowie, Elton John and Paul McCartney, Dies at 86
British bassist Herbie Flowers — a veteran musician who performed with David Bowie, Elton John, T. Rex and Paul McCartney, and whose bassline for Lou Reed’s iconic 1973 hit “Walk on the Wild Side” has been sampled countless times — died Saturday, according to a social media post from his family. No cause of death was announced; he was 86.
A veteran session musician, Flowers, who was a member of the groups T. Rex and Blue Mink, was estimated to have played on more than 500 hit albums by the end of the 1970s, according to the BBC.
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Born in 1938, Flowers became a musician in the Royal Air Force during the 1950s, playing tuba and taking up double bass as a secondary instrument. After completing his military service he began working in jazz bands, performing as a bandsman on the Queen Elizabeth ocean liner and later picking up electric bass. He soon began working as a session musician for such hit producers as Shel Talmy, Mickie Most, Gus Dudgeon and Tony Visconti; the latter two led to his work with Elton John and David Bowie, whose early material he played on, including Bowie’s 1969 hit “Space Oddity.”
During that year he also got his first taste of pop stardom as a founding member of the group Blue Mink, playing on their song “Melting Pot” which reached No. 3 in the U.K.
However, he worked primarily as a session musician, appearing on dozens of hit songs each year. He was also a savvy working musician: He famously said many times that the indelible bassline on “Walk on the Wild Side,” which was produced by Bowie, came about because he would be paid double for overdubbing a second bass over his original line — accounts vary, but most commonly it seems he was paid ￡26 for his work, which has generated untold thousands of dollars in licensing for Reed, the credited songwriter, in the years since.
Flowers created another iconic bassline, presumably also for a session fee, in 1973, with David Essex’s classic “Rock On.”
During 1974 he began another close relationship with Bowie by playing on his classic “Diamond Dogs” album and joining him for the highly theatrical North American tour that followed. However, late in the tour’s first leg, he noticed that the band’s onstage equipment was set up for recording — which meant that the musicians should have been paid significantly more, although Bowie’s management had not told them.
“I didn’t think anything of it, but Herbie picked up on it right away,” the band’s guitarist, Earl Slick, recalled to this writer in 2014. Earlier that day, “I had gotten a letter pushed under my hotel door offering me $300 basically to give my rights” to his work on the live recording. “But not long after that, Herbie is on the phone with everybody saying, ‘This is bullshit, we’re not gonna do this.’ Basically, with Herbie being the spokesperson, we said we ain’t going onstage until we get an agreement for X amount of money, period. They agreed to it, [although] I know David pitched a serious fit on Herbie.”
Indeed, Flowers was not asked back for the second leg of the tour, although he later played with Bowie again during Marc Bolan’s last performance, on the BBC TV show “Marc” in 1977. By then a member of T. Rex, Flowers played with both artists on the show, his melodic bassline can be heard clearly on the Bowie’s version of “Heroes” recorded that day. Bolan died in a car accident just days later.
In the late 1970s, Flowers founded the instrumental band, Sky, recording and performing with the band until 1995. He continued playing jazz and working sessions until recent years.
Over the course of his career, Flowers also contributed to recordings by three Beatles — Paul McCartney’s “Give My Regards to Broad Street,” Ringo Starr’s “Stop and Smell the Roses” and three George Harrison albums — as well as Nilsson (including “Jump Into the Fire”), Bryan Ferry, Cat Stevens and countless others.
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