Herbie (17)

Local musician from Hereford, UK, played bagpipes on the first version of Mike Oldfield's album Ommadawn. Died in 2012. It is acknowledged though that his contribution for Ommadawn was eventually replaced by Paddy Moloney's. It is not sure if a small part of Herbie's playing can still be heard on the final album. It is said that Mike wasn't happy with Herbie's take, and hired Paddy Maloney to replace the pipe part at the last minute. Another version of the story says that just before release, some original material with Herbie's piping had been lost or damaged. Herbie was asked to re-record, but he had some kind of reed problem and could not be ready before the deadline for the album release. So Paddy Moloney was asked to record his uilleann pipes in place of Herbie's Northumbrian pipes. Whatever the truth is, the LP jackets were already printed, and Ommadawn was released with Herbie on the group photo on the album's sleeve and his Northumbrian pipes credited on the cover. As strange as it seems, this credit was not corrected in any reissues of Ommadawn over the years, every copy consistently crediting Herbie.