Hawkwind and David Bowie Violinist Simon House Dies at 76
There are musicians whose names might not be on the marquee, but whose presence echoes through the most adventurous corridors of music. Simon House, the virtuosic violinist and keyboardist whose career spanned symphonic prog to space rock, passed away in 2024 at the age of 76. He was a sonic voyager, bending strings and timbre in ways that still ripple across genres.
Born in Nottingham on August 29, 1948, Simon House was, in many ways, a traveler between worlds. Trained as a classical violinist, he brought a Romantic-era intensity to the sprawling landscapes of psychedelic and progressive music. You could hear the ghosts of Debussy in his phrasing, even as synthesizers orbited overhead.
He came to initial attention with a psychedelic prog band called High Tide who recorded two albums and followed that with a stint in the Third Ear Band, who defied categorization hanging between jazz, folk, progressive rock and their own invented genres. Around that time, House added synthesizer to his arsenal, in particular, the VCS3. The Mellotron was also a natural addition for him.
But most listeners first encountered House during his years with Hawkwind, where he joined the mother ship in 1974, just as the band was entering one of its most creatively explosive periods. With his electric violin arcing through the cosmos, House helped define albums like Hall of the Mountain Grill and Warrior on the Edge of Time, blending high fantasy with high voltage.
His tenure with David Bowie saw him adding spectral elegance to Stage and Lodger, threading violin lines through post-punk textures with painterly precision. I was fortunate to see him with Bowie at the Spectrum in Philadelphia, adding to a truly immersive live experience, counterpointing the delirious guitar scrawls of Adrian Belew. Bowie was playing a lot of the material from Low and House was particularly suited to that more atmospheric mood.
On his own, House released solo albums that drifted into ambient and electronic and progressive rock that were wild, shredding layers violin distortion including Yassasim and Spiral Galaxy Revisited.
Simon House was not a man of spectacle, but of atmospheres. As we look back on the arc of his work, we remember a musician who shaded and expanded the work of others His bow is now at rest, but his sound is something that should be investigated more.
Simon House, August 29, 1948–May 25, 2025.
A great and talented musician who significantly enhanced the music of those he worked with, especially Hawkwind and David Bowie.