Musician Matthew Seligman died at the age of 64 due to a hemorrhagic stroke caused by complications from the CCP virus—a novel coronavirus that originated in China and has since caused a global pandemic.
Seligman—a Cyprus born English musician—played as a bass guitarist along with top names in the music industry like David Bowie, Morrissey, and the Thompson Twins.
Former bandmates and musicians paid tribute to their friend, with Thomas Dolby, musician, producer, entrepreneur, and teacher saying he had received “very sad news.”
Dolby shed light on his friend’s situation in several posts on Facebook. He said Seligman was on a ventilator in an induced coma for two weeks at a London hospital after contracting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus in early April.
Seligman later suffered a “catastrophic hemorrhagic stroke” in the hospital, from which he was not able to recover.
“It is expected that he will not survive longer than 12/24 hours. His ventilator will be gradually withdrawn until the inevitable end,” Dolby said. “I am so sad to have to bear this terrible news. I have loved him as a friend and a fellow musician for 40 years.”
Seligman’s former Soft Boys bandmate Robyn Hitchcock also confirmed his passing in a lengthy post on Facebook, adding an old picture of the musicians together.
“I’m writing this as Matthew Seligman slips out of this life and into wherever souls go next,” Hitchcock wrote on Facebook. “Everybody goes, but none of us were expecting Matthew to leave us so abruptly, forever.”
The Soft Boys’s frontman said he met Seligman in Cambridge in 1976, just before the start of the band.
“Matthew truly believed in the Soft Boys and the record,” Hitchcock wrote. “It was early 1980 and the second Cold War was intensifying. I fondly remember stomping over to the pub after a session and him saying through the dismal spring wind, ‘We may all be about to be blown up, but at least we’ll have made a classic album.'”
The Soft Boys eventually disbanded in the 1980s, but Seligman was able to continue his career as a professional bass player with many top names in the music industry. He played with Bowie on the “Labyrinth” soundtrack album and the “Absolute Beginners” single.
In 1985, Seligman and Dolby appeared as part of David Bowie’s backing group during his historic Live Aid concert.
He is survived by his partner, Mami, and two children, Daisy and Lily.
