Peggi and I are camped out in the basement while workers repair some cracks in the ceiling upstairs. Upstairs, our living quarters look like some sort of art installation with mounds of furniture wrapped in plastic.
After reading the NYT obit of Herbie Flowers I sent a link to Ken, the bass player in Margaret Explosion. He replied, “I had been playing bass for about a year when that song came out. That bass part was revelatory. I spent a decent chunk of time trying to play it. I didn’t find out until today that it was two tracks. No wonder I could never get it right.”
Flowers referred to himself as a “jazzer” but he played bass on over 500 pop rock songs. His contribution to the Bowie produced, Lou Reed classic, “Walk on the Wild Side” is considered the mother of all bass lines. In fact it is two parts. Flowers played the glissando downwards on double bass and overdubbed a glissando upwards on bass guitar.
What blew me away was reading Flowers also played the bass on David Essex’s 1973 smash, “Rock On.” That 45 and “Walk on the Wild Side” are in constant rotation in our house. I can’t wait to free our turntable from the plastic wrap.
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