Matthew Seligman

I'm afraid that despite myself I'm going to be writing more obituaries. Matthew Seligman played bass on quite a number of my favourite albums. I'll post Robyn Hitchcock's tribute below as I can't word it better, and point you to some of his recordings instead. Seligman also played with Bowie at Live Aid and elsewhere and a variety of  other bands and projects. Wikipedia will help you with the details. I met him in a music shop in London in the mid eighties, I was looking at a bass and he warned me off it saying that he had tried it and hated it and we had a brief, fairly fanboy (on my side), conversation mostly about Thomas Dolby and Robyn Hitchcock.

Bruce Woolley and The Camera Club – English Garden. It's hard to believe that this was criticised for being rooted in the 60s. Bits of Bowie, all sorts of other influences and Thomas Dolby's keyboards made a unique sound. A terrific live band, I saw them twice and would love to get a copy of their Radio 1 In Concert which I had on tape for years.

The Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight. One of those bands whose influence outweighed their impact at the time. I bought this because Matthew Seligman was on it. Not been off my radar since. Another cracking good record.

The Dolphin Brothers - Catch The Fall. I didn't know he had played on this until recently. Yet another album that fell through the cracks at the time, but is well worth your attention.

Thomas Dolby - Pretty much everything. I've talked about Dolby in the past and recommended his autobiography The Speed of Sound before. Seligman is writ large in the book and Dolby's career. You can safely try any of his solo albums but my current favourite is the last one A Map of the Floating City.

Jan Linton - Sendai. An ambient piece with flashes of fretless bass from Seligman. Sold as a response to the Japanese Tsunami and Earthquake of 2011. Quite wonderful.

Robyn Hitchcock's Tribute on Facebook 

Newsweek have the best round up of other tributes HERE.