"I'm sick of people saying Walk On the Wild Side is a classic ..." - Herbie Flowers ...

[marble falls]

“I’m sick of people saying Walk On the Wild Side is a classic. I got paid £12, and David Bowie didn’t even show up”: Session bass legend Herbie Flowers on the making of Lou Reed’s 1972 hit – and the hardest session he ever did

https://www.guitarworld.com/features/herbie-flowers-on-walk-on-the-wild-side

By Nick Wells
( Bass Player )
published 2 days ago

-snip-

“The rate was about £6 for a three-hour session, recording about 20 minutes of music. In those days, I spent more time with session drummer Barry Morgan than I did in bed with my wife! But you wouldn't necessarily know who it was for and the booker wouldn't give a shit who the band was.”

With two tracks simultaneously played on a bass guitar and a double bass, Flowers’ iconic bassline on Walk On the Wild Side is known the world over, adding a touch of class to one of the darkest pop songs ever written.

“I played that on my old English pine double bass and my Fender Jazz. There was no inspiration, just a bar of C and a bar of F going round and round. I'd put double bass on the bottom end, playing the bottom note, and then I asked to put bass guitar above because I wanted to try something else.

“But I'm sick of people saying, ‘Walk On The Wild Side is a classic, you must be rolling in it!’ I got paid £12, and Bowie – who was voted Producer of the Year – didn't even show up until all the tracks were down. That's good production, isn't it? Phone some clever people up, stay out of the way, then collect the award! It was just a lucky thing. I got paid £12 for the session, end of story.”

[EYESORE 9001]

1. Robin Trower nailed it

when he wrote, ‘takers get the honey, givers sing the blues’.

[marble falls]

2. They make the petals and management sells the roses.

167,000 GM employees built 2,230,000 vehicle last year. Building cars is like the music business.

[highplainsdem]

3. I wish that sort of thing didn't happen, but it's all too common. I posted recently about Mick Taylor

not getting credit and royalties the Stones should have given him, even though he was a member of the band. Mick Ronson should have made much more money than he did as one of Bowie's Spiders from Mars. So even band members make less than they should. Session musicians rarely get the credit and attention they deserve.

And see this 2021 Variety article on what's done to songwriters:

https://variety.com/2021/music/news/dirty-business-hit-songwriting-1234946090/

[marble falls]

4. It's still a dirty business that was even worse the farther back you go. Content is everything, artists are just ...

... content machines. I thought "That Thing You Do" was very informative about this, even if it's a G-rated sort of exploitation.

[highplainsdem]

5. It's likely to get much worse with AI. Voice actors are already pressured to sign contracts giving

companies that hire them the right to use AI copies of their voices in the future, with little control over what they'll be used for.

[marble falls]

6. AI is a monster. Have you read how a guy who AI'd songs, had them robo listened to and got $10M from spotify ...

... for his fake songs, his fake bands, fake listeners in around 10 years? Made 'album' covers, wrote liner notes, created fake managers and labels.

[highplainsdem]

7. Yep. Saw that disgusting story.

But Spotify itself has been slipping AI-generated artists and music onto playlists, increasing its own profits and hurting real artists. There's a Rick Beato video with Ted Gioia from a few months ago where they talk about that.

[msongs]

11. interesting article. its mostly all negotiabile and the biz is full of scamming liars similar to trump nt

[ProfessorGAC]

8. Sorry To Hear Tye Bitterness

Especially the shot at Bowie.
David put up the money & was instrumental in the final mix of Transformer.
Herbie was a session dude. That's what those guys did. Play a couple hours, get paid.
I do admit that £12 seems a bit light for 3 hours of a major label recording in the early 70s. I got more than that for the one session I did in my life in 1974 or 1975. And, that was for a regional label (Kapp records). I spent 8 hours in the studio (probably played for a little over 4) & made $75. Plus, I got a free copy of the LP when it was released, signed by the guys in the band.
It was fun, but it didn't make me consider a career in sessions. No way.

[msongs]

9. the guy was likely told what he would be paid. take it or leave it one supposes nt

[ProfessorGAC]

10. Agreed

Wasn't a pound about $2.50 in those days?
I suppose I can see someone taking a session for 3 hours at $30. $10 and hour was probably ok on 1972.
I didn't consider the exchange rate in my earlier post. Now that I have, it's better than what I got, and I thought I got a good deal.

[marble falls]

12. I don't think it was bitterness. I think his point is that it was just another session in a line of over 2,000 sessions

and he, like the Wrecking Crew were consummate professionals who did practically all the best cuts ever heard: one after another after another after another. Plus this was in England, the wages were much better in the US.

I also think this was a section of a larger interview and is missing context.

[ProfessorGAC]

13. The Shot At Bowie Seemed Bitter To Me

And, downthread, I retracted my money concern.
That came out to $10/hour, which 52 years ago was probably decent.

[marble falls]

15. I think the shot at Bowie was probably accurate. A lot of musicians who produce don't touch a board much ...

... and I don't think it was bitter, but more of a friendly shot.

[highplainsdem]

14. Professor, Tony Visconti was paid only 25 pounds A WEEK as producer Denny Cordell's assistant in 1967. That's

in his bio. So what Herbie Flowers was paid wasn't bad, unless there'd been terrible inflation between 1967 and the early '70s. Of course it was hard to survive on £25/week in London even that long ago, but Tony managed. He didn't start making serious money until he had producer's royalties from hits he produced, especially for T.Rex and Bowie, when he could buy a nice house in London and build a studio in part of it, then later buy a second home, a Georgian mansion in the countryside closer to his wife Mary Hopkins' family in Wales.

Re Herbie's rather bitter comment toward Bowie... Much as I admire Bowie, there were plenty of times he could have been much more considerate of people he worked with, people who gave him a lot of help with his successes. The same is true of lots of stars, of course, probably most of them. Assuming Herbie's correct about how much he contributed to the sound of that track, and about Bowie not being there for any of the recording sessions, I don't think Bowie just doing the final mix was enough to offset what Herbie said. Herbie had a lot to do with that track's success.

But so did Mick Ronson.

Mick Ronson coproduced that album and played on it and probably had much more to do with its success than Bowie did:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformer_(Lou_Reed_album)

Mick Ronson (who was at the time the lead guitarist with Bowie's band, the Spiders from Mars) played a major role in the recording of the album at Trident Studios, London,[6] serving as the co-producer and primary session musician (contributing guitar, piano, recorder and backing vocals), as well as arranger, contributing the string arrangement for "Perfect Day". Reed lauded Ronson's contribution in the Transformer episode of the documentary series Classic Albums, praising the beauty of his work and keeping down the vocal to highlight the strings.

I have no idea what Ronson might have been paid for his work as a musician/arranger on the album (Tony had taught him a lot about producing and arranging), but if Bowie and Ronson divided the production royalties evenly, Ronson could have done very well. If Tony's original contract with T. Rex was typical, T.Rex got a 4% artist royalty to divide, while Tony got 3% as producer. I don't know what the Transformer contract was like, though, or if the production royalty was split evenly. I do know that Ronson and the other Spiders from Mars were grossly underpaid, though that was at least partly due to Bowie listening to management that eventually ripped him off badly while they lived like rock stars on his hits.