Also lost to us last week was bass player Herbie Flowers. His CV is second to none.

Perhaps his most distinctive performance was his double bass line for Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side but that could be matched by the innovation on David Essex’s Rock On.

Lou Reed: Walk on the Wild Side

David Essex: Rock On

Brian Keith (Herbie) Flowers: 19/5/1938 – 5/9/2024. So it goes.

It was this tune by Andrew Lloyd Webber I had in mind in my previous post in this category. This appeared a few years after Après Toi.

It’s a good tune. Lloyd Webber used it several times.

It’s not usually this lyric people think of though.

David Essex: Oh What a Circus

In a passage in Adam Roberts’s New Model Army (see my thoughts on it a few posts below) one of the characters thinks of Jeff Wayne rather than HG Wells when he hears the words, “War of the Worlds.” He at once mentions Richard Burton, David Essex and the Moody Blues. Well, as another song has it; two out of three ain’t* bad.

The character can be forgiven for the mistake, though. His mind wasn’t working properly at the time and it is understandable. Richard Burton and David Essex were both heard on the recording but it wasn’t all the Moody Blues who contributed to Jeff Wayne’s endeavour but their lead singer, the distinctively voiced Justin Hayward, certainly did. While Richard Burton was the spoken voice of the journalist Hayward took over for the singing and thus gave us the haunting Forever Autumn.

Justin Hayward: Forever Autumn

*Sorry for the inelegant language in the quote there.