A tribute by Jeff Wayne.
"It’s with sadness that I and TWOTW Team would like you to know that one of the great British musicians, passed away last Thursday after a long illness.
Rock On Herbie – no-one on earth or in heaven, will ever take your bass away."
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Around 1969, I first met Herbie on a commercial recording session for a shampoo. All I knew from my ‘booker’, was that he was a much in-demand session player, so I felt very lucky to learn of his availability for my session. What I learned very quickly, that aside from session duties, his pedigree on bass guitar (using non-traditional strings that gave him a special sound), upright bass, tuba and penny whistle, that saw him play with so many of the music world’s ‘greats’ – like David Bowie, Elton John and Paul McCartney, and any style of music – from rock to classical to jazz – in fact to anything you’d put in front of him. A brilliant sight-reader, a man of wonderful humour, a man of genuine warmth and integrity.
He was a founding member of groups like Blue Mink and Sky, and played on literally hundreds of hit records, and created some magnificent bass lines including on Bowie’s Space Oddity, Lou Reed’s Walk On The Wild side, and proudly I add, on David Essex’s ‘Rock On’ that I produced and arranged.
The ‘band’ on the backing track of ‘Rock On’ consisted of 3 musicians, Barry Morgan on drums, Barry De Souza on percussion and Herbie Flowers. Booked for a 10am start, they were, as all proper session musicians would be, in their places ready to play at the booked time. I was MD’ing in front of them and Herbie who was nearest to me (in fact the two Barry’s were in separate booths, turned to me and asked, ‘when’s the rest of the band arriving Jeff??’
My reply surprised them - ‘guys, you 3 ARE the band'. I didn’t want any instruments that could play chords – like keyboards, guitars, or tuned percussion, etc. I just wanted a 1950s-type echo to create an ‘atmosphere, for Herbie’s bass guitar to be right up front.
When the basic track was recorded, Herbie suggested he play the same part, but up an octave to give the bass an added quality to its sound. Boy was he right, and like the countless other producers and artists that had benefitted from Herbie’s uniqueness, Rock On became a massive hit in the UK and reached No 1 in the US Cash Box charts.
Over the years, Herbie and I worked on countless other projects, commercials, TV themes, films and eventually my musical version of The War of The Worlds. And years later when we started our arena tours in 2006, he became a member of The Black Smoke Band and appeared on stage with me conducting. And every performance when his menacing bass line started off ‘Horsell Common and The Heat Ray’, from my podium, I’d look toward him and he back to me, with each of us nodding our heads with a smile.
His eyesight started to fail and needed surgery, so when TWOTW played a season at London’s Dominion Theatre in 2016, he wasn’t available to participate, but he was back on stage in our 2018 arena tour – not knowing it would be the last time we’d work together.
Memories of someone we’ve lost, family or friend, are always sad occasions until time heals the wounds. But with Herbie, there was far too much brightness and cheeky positivity to feel ‘broken’ for very long – his immediate family I hope will feel the same.
After all, how could a musician like Herbie stand equal with some of the world’s finest artists, but also compose the UK No. 1’Grandad’ for Clive Dunn, write a song for Eurovision titled Mr. Moonlight under the group name of Herbie Flowers and The Daisies and another single, ‘Don’t Take My Bass Away – both of which I produced and arranged.
I will remember always, Herbie Flowers who could be serious, cool, and edgy but also great fun and uplifting.
'Rock On' Herbie – no-one on earth or in heaven, will ever take your bass away.
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