John Mole – Bass

Another tune from the legend John Mole. Mole was the mainstay behind Jon Hiseman’s Colosseum II alongside guitarist Gary Moore, keyboard player Don Airey. Moore went on to have a fairly successful career as a bandleader in his own right and Airey has been the first call guy in most mainstream Rock bands since the 1970s including the current post-Jon Lord line-up of Deep Purple. Whilst Mole did play past the demise of Colosseum, his work remained mostly hidden behind people like Andrew Lloyd Webber and Barbara Streisand, he remained a well-loved personality on the UK music scene.

This is the complete Mole bass performance of the tune ‘Song For Donna’ from the 1978 Gary Moore album, ‘Back On The Streets’. The line-up features Moore, Airey and Mole alongside drummer Simon Phillips: Colosseum II in all but name. The bass part is really interesting and worth spending some time with. There are some complex ghost notes but they are generally repeating. It wasn’t until I did the transcription that I realised that there is a massive key change. The later chorus is in a different key to the original.

In case you are wondering, Donna is Moore’s partner (she features on the cover of the album, waiting outside Wormwood Scrubs for the newly released guitarist. More to the point, she wrote the lyrics to the song.