Herbie Flowers was a bass player’s bass player, but you’ve probably heard him. He played on a lot of sessions, including Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and Elton John’s Madman Across the Water.
But I know his name primarily for two songs. First, for Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” That bass line bedeviled me for a bit until I realized it was two parts: an upright part and an electric bass part. They’re both beautiful bass parts, though. He claimed that he did it so he’d get paid two session fees for one session (and claimed that other times when he played two bass parts on other recordings), but I think he probably could think of two good bass parts for any song.
Second, for Nilsson’s Jump Into the Fire. His instructions were apparently “a groove in D major”. It surely does groove. When he starts de-tuning his bass at around 2:27, it’s because he thinks the song is going to be faded out at that point, and he was just enjoying himself. So he gets back in tune at around 2:40. There’s a definite edit where the drum solo cuts in at 3:56, who knows what happened in the part edited out, Herbie comes back in at around 4:40 with a severely de-tuned bass line, brings it back in tune again, and closes out the rest of the seven minutes majestically. When I cover this song, I cheat and just use a tuner while the guitars cover for me.
You were one of my heroes, Herbie. Sad to see you go, and thanks for your music.