Obits — April 17, 2020 at 10:18 pm

Matthew Seligman, bassist for The Soft Boys, Thomas Dolby and more, dies of COVID-19

Matthew Seligman, the highly inventive bassist for The Soft Boys who went on to record with Thomas Dolby, Thompson Twins, The Waterboys, Peter Murphy, Morrissey and more, and who played with David Bowie at Live Aid, died Friday after being in a coma for two weeks with COVID-19, his longtime friend Dolby announced on social media.

Earlier Friday, Dolby shared news on Facebook from guitarist and longtime mutual friend Kevin Armstrong that Seligman, 63, “has suffered a catastrophic haemorrhagic stroke from which he won’t recover.” Seligman, Dolby wrote, had been on a ventilator in a medically induced coma for two weeks after begin admitted to St. George’s Hospital in London with COVID-19.

“I don’t have words,” Dolby wrote. Six hours later, he posted a two-word follow-up: “Matthew’s gone.”



Robyn Hitchcock, who played with Seligman in The Soft Boys and on his solo albums Black Snake Diamond Röle, Groovy Decay and Invisible Hitchcock, wrote his own tribute to the bassist on Facebook.

“I’m profoundly grateful to have played music with him — you could really see his face light up like a full moon when he listened back to a take he enjoyed. Onstage he would lope and lurch and pace when the music moved him. Matthew is, was, and always will be one of the greats.”

Seligman’s career as a bassist begin with Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club, a band that also featured Dolby. After playing on that band’s 1979 debut, he left and joined The Soft Boys, replacing Andy Metcalfe and performing on the band’s classic second album Underwater Moonlight. “A joyous and funky bass player, he made Underwater Moonlight an exuberant LP to record and listen to,” Hitchcock wrote in his tribute.

After the break-up of The Soft Boys, Seligman rejoined Dolby in the short-lived act The Fallout Club, then joined the Thompson Twins for a couple years. He’d go on to join Dolby’s solo band, playing on the hit single “She Blinded Me With Science” and Dolby’s albums The Golden Age of Wireless and The Flat Earth.

As a session musician, Seligman played bass on Bowie’s “Labyrinth” soundtrack and the song “Absolute Beginners,” as well as albums and singles by The Waterboys (This Is the Sea), Transvision Vamp (Pop Art), Tori Amos (Little Earthquakes), former Soft Boys bandmate Kimberley Rew (The Bible of Bop), Morrissey (“Ouija Board, Ouija Board”), Peter Murphy (Love Hysteria) and more.

“My heart goes out to his partner, Mami; his children Daisy and Lily, and all who were close to him and his lunar intensity,” Hitchcock wrote.

Below, read the moving tributes to Seligman from some of his bandmates and friends — and hear some of his most memorable musical contributions.

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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One Comment

  1. Jan Linton
    April 18, 2020 at 7:16 am  ·  Reply

    Matthew bassically saved the title track of my last album “I Actually Come Back” with his mix, and for hours I was praying he would come back. I met him in Hong Kong and Japan and after he rescued his family from the Sendai Earthquake in 2011, we released a joint fundraising soundtrack album together, “Sendai”. We kept on collaborating over the last few years and were just discussing re-releasing the Sendai fundraiser – the only album to bear his name as the artist – when he was taken ill. I am completely demoralised and the one tiny little thing that keeps me going is that his music lives on. So sad for his family and young daughter, my heart goes out to them.

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