Bass Player: Herbie Flowers

‘No-one would have believed, in the last days of 2020, that a transcribers affairs were being watched from the timeless whirls of the internet’.

Herbie Flowers was a renowned session player in the 1970s and, amongst his many appearances, he recorded with David Bowie, T. Rex, Lou Reed, Petula Clark, Bryan Ferry, Elton John and a host of others. It is his bass that graces Lou Reed’s ‘Walk On The Wild Side’. For a generation of players, however, Herbie was the man who played those fantastic bass lines on the 1978 album ‘Jeff Waynes Musical Version of The War Of The Worlds’. A concept album (this was AFTER the dawn of Punk Rock but such things were still allowed), the double LP set featured the rich voice of actor Richard Burton and singers David Essex, Phil Lynott, Justin Hayward, Julie Covington and Chris Thompson.

Bilbo grew up with this album so decided to transcribe the whole thing for posterity’s sake. The bass parts for the original recording of the whole double LP will be posted on Bilbo’s Bass Bites over the coming days. These have been a bit of a haul and it got to the point where we couldn’t see the wood for the trees so keep your eyes open for errors and let us know if you spot anything.