Walk On The Wild Side - The story behind the classic bass intro featuring Herbie Flowers.
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- Опубліковано 21 чер 2010
- An extract from the One Show featuring Herbie Flowers, and his part in the classic bass intro to Lou Reed's 'Walk on the wild side'.
Broadcast 9th June 2010
Never realised the apparent 'simplicity ' but actually complexity of the bass by this wonderful artist made this an outstanding song. Love it til this day
This is a classic example of great musicianship. The bass line is what really makes it work. Totally inspired - I love it!!!
I love that bass line: you can clearly hear both the double bass and the bass Guitar and it sounds Amazing.
So I used to go to primary school in that East Sussex village and Herbie would often come in a play silly songs for us kids.
We had no idea who he was, but our parents were all in awe. Great guy and great memories.
Spoken to Mr. Flowers on a few occasions now, and he is THE nicest most amiable bloke Ive ever known, a true gent and a musical legend.
Love it some of the biggest hits are written within an hour .
I had the privilege of playing a brief jam session with Herbie back in the mid 90s as a teen...a true gent!
Amazing insight to a brilliant song. R.I.P Lou Reed
I was once lucky enough to record a session with Herbie Flowers, and he was an absolute gent as you'd expect. I remember those black strings on his Fender bass well. He said he hadn't changed them in over ten years and I wouldn't be surprised if he's still got the same set on now!
Two legends there, Herbie and Chris Spedding
Love that booming sound of an upright bass, certainly one of the prettiest bass sounds I know of.
I have golden memories of three consecutive years seeing and hearing Herbie Flowers at the Dartington Summer School of Music - one of the nicest of men, and one of my very nicest musical memories, ever...especially the lonely heart's club evenings... and hearing Chattanooga choo choo for the first time...
Herbie take a bow you are a gosh darn legend. One of my great heroes
One debauched night in the late 1980's I found myself in that very room...How I will never know...but after a 'session ' at the mythical North Star Public House...anything was possible...Still remember the aura of Herbies place on the High Street. Very unassuming ....but deep in ether.....
Very well presented.
Fantastic! One of the greatest bass lines ever.
Herbie Flowers a great personality and musician he worked with so many greats Bolan, Bowie, Reed unforgettable work amazing great video
I love stories like this! Thanks!
Very cool, what a great slice of music history.
Herbie is very humble as you have to be to play as a Session Musician but it was no accident he made a career out of composing amazing bass lines.)
He actually turned me onto those strings, used them ever since. They feel great on the fingers and sound lovely when plugged in.
Took him 20 minutes! Pure genius!
Great Sound, Thanks.
i love Lou reed
If you listen to David Bowie’s Sound And Vision, you’ll hear Herbie Flowers working his wonderful magic on electric bass. Wow what a guy, a true gent.
As musical motifs go that bassline is up there with the sax solo in Baker Street and the Cello in Jaws. Place in history books assured.
Great piece!
The great Chris Spedding on guitar who has played with Bryan Ferry off and on for years
noticed immediately
this is tremendous...thinking of Lou, this morning, of course
Awesome song! Awesome bass line. :)
Typical English understatement at work. Love it.
He's a great guy and very approachable! Met him three times in the last few weeks! Plays in the Shoreham By Sea area of west Sussex frequently! Do meet him, you won't regretit!
Good Days and fond memories
Love you man
X
Except that on the recording of the intro, the double bass goes down from the C to a low F, not up. He plays it all sorts of ways in the song and my guess is that the producer kept one particular version that he liked for the into.
The producer was Herbies mate David Bowie!
My all time favorite bass line of his is Space Oddity, I recommend searching here on youtube for space oddity drums and bass and giving it a listen. It's so off-beat and weird, but absolutely perfect at the same time. And it's straight hell to learn lol, but I'm still trying.
www.dropbox.com/s/kq2ie1q70uq1x9t/07%20Land%20Of%20The%20Midnight%20Sun%20%28feat.%20Herbie%20Flowers%29.wav
Check out this track Herbie Flowers played on recently with UK band Moulettes. On tour now.
Took me years to nail this bassline took Herbie ten minutes!
Totally I agree I play bass and space oddity was one of the more challenging songs I've ever had to learn. Bass completely random but beautiful
Someone mentioned on Facebook that Herbie Flowers also did "Jump Into The Fire"... this, Walk and Space Odditty... Triple Epic!
So wonderful to hear these truly talented people being so low key about their creations when other less knowledgeable people can be so pretentious.
The genius that is Herbie Flowers.
Now we just need to see how he did "Jump Into The Fire" :)
My favorite of his, if I must choose just one!
I joined the Central Band in 1970 and there were some lovely stories told about Herbie. The best one I recall was that one of the Directors of Music told Herbie he would never get any where in the music world after he left the RAF. (Might have have been Eric B - think it was Stan Tamplin talking to Dave Chapman when I over heard it) anyway for a bit of fun Herbie sent a copy of Grandad to him to remind him of his words.
So sad news. Lou...........the legend never dies!
Impeccable
This gentleman's 20 minute contribution in the studio has stood the test of time. It really is about the so called "little people"
Wonderful! looks like Chris Spedding on guitar!
really nice
Great share!
That's dope.
Excellent :)
That electric thang is about a $30,000 1960 "stacked knob Fender jazz my friends........
She is a purtty BAsS
Classic bass
@cdiaz55 That would make sense given that the Jazz was put into production in 1960, but I have an interview with Herbie Flowers where he asserts his bass is a 1959 build, hinting that it's a prototype...
My gawd,possibly the most interesting thing the One Show has ever featured.
Bassist feature excellent , back bone
This is Des Coleman, now a weatherman for ITV East Midlands. He's a great character.
He bought the 1959 Fender Jazz for $79 from Manny's in New York City apparently (or according to Wikipedia I should say, {{Citation needed}} and all that).
Can he kick it?
romeo vukas Yes he can. 😃
YES he can!
I play bass.....and the only reason I play bass is because of that man above,,,,thanks Herbie I hope to one day to finally meet you
That is one expensive stack knob jazz bass Herbie owns there!
Thing is he lets anybody play it or have a go with it.Nice fella is Herbie no ego whatso ever
Probably his first decent bass and he kept it because of that.
It was. And it's a 1960's Jazz bass in lake placid blue that he got from Manny's in New York City for $79..
You can see the original fiesta red finish underneath because of the wear.
This is more impressive the original herbie guy over dubbed. My man here is literally double tapping !
that sure is a stack knob I remember Nick .Herbies son bringing that bass into school (abbotsfield) thinking now it surprised me he allowed him to bring it in ..thats lake placid blue ..shot over what looks to be red could be fiesta..herbie obviously liked blue because I remember the allegro car he had which was a similar blue..he took me to see David Essex at wembley in 77 me and Nick had a great time ..Herbie is a cool guy the whole family were lovely.
I used to be a friend of Nicky, Herbies son. We were at school at the time. I was in the girls school Swakeleys and he went next door to the boys school Abottsfield. My mum Chris was the cook for Abbotsfield. We used to hang out at his house, it was amazing, cool games room and jukebox. Fun times. Herbie used to give their did Cadbury’s crema eggs.. lol and the kitchen ceiling was full of autographs off famous people.. good times oh and his best friend at the time Peter Sully.
Their Dog 🐶
Hi mate thanks for reply the only problem with meeting herbie is distance! I'm in Northumberland...though I did get to see him play live with War of the Worlds a few years back,seems a great guy though,no ego! I'v followed his career for years and as i said above a massive influence on me.Do you play at all?
Herbie Flowers who payed bass on Walk On The Wildside on the album Transformer is in our Documentary at this link ua-cam.com/video/0YvZIBsz0CM/v-deo.html
Herbie's other great achievement was that he wrote Grandad!
As as a SKY Fan .. There is also 'Tuba Smarties' 'Dance of the Little Fairies' and 'Scipio'... and he is awesome in War of the Worlds.
now it's the opening in #TomAndJerryMovie
I can take a dump in a box slap “guarantee” on it, and the vast majority of the public would buy it lol
How come then that most people think it was Jack Bruce who played bass on "Transformer" ??
Jack played on “Berlin”.
Premier musician.
I hope he got some publishing or mechanics out of it.
3:27
He’s quite intense with his questioning.
Is this an urban myth?? Did Herbie Flowers live in North Adelaide when he was playing with Sky??
No
Yeah this bass line is really good and it's iconic, but there's NO WAY that it's better than YES ROUNDABOUT IMHO 😊
I disagree, Walk On The Wildside is timeless, Roundabout, not so much, imho.
Thanks for that information thats a fantastic story....Herbie would get nowhere in music! how wrong they were...
chris spedding!
I'm reminded of one of my most embarrassing experiences as a film/TV music composer - ripping off 'Walk On The Wild Side' for a library music session way back when/then, to find Herbie sitting there when we came to record it. I'd replicated the bass part pretty close, with but a few changes, but Herbie wasn't fooled. 'Si', he said, 'd'ya want me to play it like the original?" Oh bugger - but he did it, beautifully, with 'a few changes'! Bless you Herbie...
@@simonpark7026 Thank you for sharing this wonderful story.
herbie flower is a relation to my family he is my great uncle john laceys cousin i think so herbie if you read this i am family
"you were doubled the money". hey, shameless opportunist session players gotta eat ;p
Tragic he’s not paid royalties for “can I kick it”.
I prefer cult Legend myself.
Listeners and patrons of music must acknowledge all the musicians that made solo artist's shine ~ kind of an essential duty. A lot of bands of the 60's and 70's were truly inept musicians and relied heavily on studio musicians to create their 'sound'.
Studio executives in those times knew they had KILLER studio musicians to churn luscious music during the 60'-70s, so, the studio musicians largely made up all the guitar riffs and killer bass lines from the most menial tune or hook from a 'band' or singer.
It is quite unfortunate modern music producers are all corporate minded now, wanting to produce predictable music, generic, .... horrible.
In all, it has disrupted the entire evolution of rock and roll, all this American Idol nonsense. Bands and singers are made from scratch, hard times, working and touring, making new music, touring and touring ~ hard living. Not all make it, and even when they do, there are mind boggling challenges ahead just to stay alive.
Now, these musical idiots audition and some get 'in' to perform on a television show, just totally bypassing the rigor other musicians, singers, band members have gone through.
Making it big in music should be an elimination process that is not figured out by a goddamn panel of wealthy judges on flippin' TV ~ not even close to how great music is made, and infinitely wrong to judge a singer on a few performances over the course of a few months, ........... wrong on every level imaginable.
That American Idol culture definitely needs canceling ~ I don't respect any of that nonsense, avoid and despise that hype.
I do buy records, though, and most of the time, I try to buy direct from the artist!
I still prefer his playing on Clive Dunn’s legendary “Grandad”. Beyond edgy...
.. Which I Believe Herbie Flowers wrote..
Love the video until you said without that baseline it might just be a forgotten 70s song. No song by Louis will ever be forgotten not in this century anyway.
Great tuba player too