Uriah Heep's Trevor Bolder Born

Trevor Bolder anchored the rhythm section of David Bowie's Spiders from Mars, providing the thunderous bass lines that drove the Ziggy Stardust album into rock history. Born in Hull, Yorkshire, on June 9, 1950, he started playing guitar as a teenager before switching to bass after hearing the instrument's power in the music of Jack Bruce and John Entwistle. He was recruited by Mick Ronson, a fellow Hull musician, for Bowie's backing band in 1971. The Spiders from Mars, consisting of Ronson on guitar, Bolder on bass, and Mick "Woody" Woodmansey on drums, became the engine behind Bowie's most creatively fertile period. Bolder's bass work on Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Aladdin Sane, and Pin Ups provided the rhythmic foundation for songs that redefined glam rock. His playing was muscular and melodic, influenced more by hard rock than by the art-rock pretensions that surrounded Bowie's public persona. When Bowie disbanded the Spiders on stage at the Hammersmith Odeon in July 1973, announcing "this is the last show we'll ever do" without warning the band in advance, Bolder was left without a job in the most public breakup in rock history. He joined Uriah Heep in 1976 and spent over two decades with the band, becoming their longest-serving bass player and a steady, reliable presence through lineup changes and musical evolutions. His versatility and professionalism made him one of British hard rock's most dependable musicians. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2012 and died on May 21, 2013, at sixty-two.