Hansford Rowe
Hansford Rowe is a British bass player who appeared with Allan on the Gong albums "Expresso II" and "Time is The Key". He also appeared with Allan on the Gong spinoff project Gongzilla. Rowe also appeared on an early demo of Allan tape along with Gary Husband, which has been slated for release on a current Gong spinoff project called "Gong Expresso" on Pledgemusic.
In a 2017 interview, Hansford talked about Allan:
Q: Allan Holdsworth just departed. Reflect on your time working with him.
A: When Pierre played Gazuese! for me in New York City, I heard Allan for the first time. I was into Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Steely Dan, and Earth, Wind and Fire. When I heard Allan’s guitar playing and Pierre’s drumming, I was ready to drop everything and head off to the unknown in Paris. I wrote “Soli” knowing Allan would be soloing. He was as idiosyncratic in the studio then as ever but also jovial and funny as hell.
Allan didn’t really enjoy recording in the normal sense. Recording is a paradox. When being creative, you have to risk breaking things and having accidents. It’s not really creative without some destruction and that causes stress and suffering. We all find ways of managing this. If you don’t, nothing gets finished. Once when we played a show in London with Allan, he had at least 10 pints before going onstage. He played great. We all were pretty resilient in those days. But it takes its toll. Allan played with us on and off over the years, including some great stuff with Gongzilla in the ‘90s. I loved him and it pained me to see him suffer. Success is a series of failures that turn out relatively well. I think we all feel blessed to have known Allan whether personally or through his music. As an artist, I think he was successful.
More interesting stuff on Gong in the full interview:
