Biography

By the end of the 1970s he had played bass on an estimated 500 hit recordings.

He began his musical training in 1956 when conscripted into the Royal Air Force, electing at first to serve for nine years as a bandsman playing tuba. He took up double bass as a second instrument to secure his "junior technician" stripe and later moved to electric bass.

After completing his military service he passed through the line-ups of several Dixieland jazz bands in the early 1960s, then discovered modern jazz.

Later in the 1960s he began to acquire his reputation as a session player, working for record producers such as Shel Talmy, Mickie Most, Steve Rowland, Richard Perry, Gus Dudgeon and Tony Visconti.

In 1965 he was engaged as a bandsman on the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth. After hearing an electric bass at a New York nightclub, he acquired his own solid-body electric instrument, a Lake Placid Blue 1960 Fender Jazz Bass that he purchased from Manny's Music in New York City for $79.