Philip Neil Murray (born 27 August 1950) is a Scottish bass guitarist, best known for his collaborations with Whitesnake, Brian May's band, Black Sabbath and Gary Moore. Career Early days Originally a drummer who started playing bass in 1967, Murray formed his first band with school friends in 1967 (Slap Happy and the Dum-Dums). His musical tastes were heavily influenced by the mid-1960s 'blues boom' bands and musicians, especially Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce, and later by Motown legend James Jamerson and Tim Bogert of Vanilla Fudge, Cactus and Beck, Bogert & Appice. Murray moved to bass shortly before studying graphic design at the London College of Printing. During 1973, Neil briefly played in Gilgamesh, a jazz-fusion band led by Alan Gowen. After his departure from Gilgamesh, Murray toured the US with Junior Hanson, following a recommendation from Jeff Beck's bass player Clive Chaman. Hanson later became a member of Bob Marley & the Wailers under the name Junior Marvin. Neil spent early 1974 supporting the album he recorded with them, Magic Dragon. Murray's next gig came again through a recommendation from Clive Chaman, touring with Cozy Powell's Hammer in 1974 and 1975. The line-up included keyboardist Don Airey and guitarist Bernie Marsden. After Cozy Powell decided to fold Hammer, Murray and Airey joined a revamped version of the British progressive jazz-rock band Colosseum II. The band's leader, drummer Jon Hiseman, had evolved the band's sound in preference for a rockier sound courtesy of Gary Moore's guitar. This line-up of Colosseum II lasted for the first 1976 album Strange New Flesh (a title suggested by Murray, being a snippet of the lyric from their cover of Joni Mitchell's Down To You). Strange New Flesh was a little less intellectual than most of the jazz rock coming out of the UK. It did not have the blackness of bands like Weather Report, but offered more accessible melodies and rock power than the more "intellectual" Canterbury fusion scene presented at the time. Following months of touring Europe and the UK, Murray and vocalist Mike Starrs were fired, due to pressure from the record label Bronze Records, who soon after dropped Colosseum II altogether. After Colosseum II, in 1976 Neil teamed up again with ex-Gilgamesh keyboardist Alan Gowen in National Health with whom he recorded a self-titled album in 1977. Prior to recording that album, the band played with drummer Bill