Herbie Flowers (born Brian Keith Flowers, 19 May 1938, in Isleworth, Middlesex) is an English musician specialising in bass guitar, double-bass and tuba. He is noted as a member of Blue Mink, T. Rex and Sky and as one of Britain's best-known session bass-players, having contributed to recordings by Elton John (Tumbleweed Connection etc.), David Bowie (Space Oddity), Lou Reed (including the prominent bass line of "Walk on the Wild Side"), David Essex, Allan Clarke, Al Kooper, Harry Nilsson, Cat Stevens, Serge Gainsbourg and George Harrison: he also played bass on Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. By the end of the 1970s Flowers had played bass on an estimated 500 hit recordings. Herbie Flowers began his musical training when conscripted into the Royal Air Force: electing at first to serve as a bandsman playing tuba, he took up double bass as a second instrument in order to secure his corporal' stripes and later moved to electric bass. After completing his national service he passed through the lineups of several Dixieland jazz bands in the early '60s, then discovered modern jazz. In 1965 he was engaged as a bandsman on the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth.