Tributes have been paid after the death of Herbie Flowers, the session musician whose instantly recognisable bassline on Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side is considered one of the greatest in pop music history.

Flowers, who also played bass for David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Paul McCartney, Bryan Ferry and Elton John, has died aged 86, family members confirmed on Facebook.

Tim Burgess, the lead singer of the Charlatans, said on X: “Farewell Herbie Flowers, he made the greats sound greater.”

The estate of Bowie paid tribute, saying Flowers’ work over the years was too long to list. “Aside from his incredible musicianship over many decades, he was a beautiful soul and a very funny man. He will be sorely missed. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.”

Mat Osman, Suede’s bassist, posted: “Ah, damn. RIP Herbie Flowers. So many great basslines – imagine having played on Space Oddity, Walk on the Wild Side and Rock On.”

Flowers was born in Isleworth in 1938 and began his career in the 1960s as a session musician playing for producers including Shel Talmy, Mickie Most and Tony Visconti.

He was a founding member in 1969 of the band Blue Mink, which had chart success with the songs Melting Pot and The Banner Man.

Flowers was always in demand as a bass player and created one of the best known of all hooks for Walk on the Wild Side. It has a brilliant, instantly recognisable ascending and descending twang, but Flowers was modest about it.

“People have often suggested that I should have got writer’s credits, but I just helped put an arrangement together,” he said in an interview. “Lou had the chords written out on a piece of paper and my job was to come up with the bass line.”

In another interview, he said: “You do the job and get your arse away. You take a £12 fee; you can’t play a load of bollocks.” The fee was actually, it has been said, the grand sum of £17, which was more than the reported £9 he got for a three-hour session on Bowie’s Space Oddity in 1969.

Flowers is said to have recorded more than 20,000 sessions, including for Dusty Springfield, George Harrison, Serge Gainsbourg and David Essex.

Another claim to fame was that he co-wrote the hit 1970 novelty song Grandad after, it is said, he met Clive Dunn at a party and the actor – a household name thanks to Dad’s Army – challenged him to write a song for him.

Flowers was a member of the final lineup of T Rex shortly before Marc Bolan’s death, featuring on the band’s final album, 1977’s Dandy in the Underworld, and Bolan’s Marc TV show.

In the late 1970s, Flowers founded the instrumental prog rock band, Sky, recording and performing with the band until 1995, releasing seven albums. Other records featuring Flowers include Bryan Ferry’s The Bride Stripped Bare, Paul McCartney’s Give My Regards to Broad Street, and Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of the War of the Worlds.

Kevin J Conklin, the husband of Flowers’ niece, Lorraine Bassett, paid tribute on Facebook, saying: “While we knew and loved him as Uncle Herbie, his musical contributions have likely touched your lives as well.

“He played bass on many of the songs from the golden age of rock … We’ll miss you Uncle Herbie! Rock on.”