PHIL Spalding may not be a household name, but the music he makes is a household sound. Millions of people have immersed themselves in this Essex boy’s bass guitar playing.

The Spalding sound provides texture to the background of songs by Elton John, Mick Jagger, Kylie Minogue, Tina Turner, and Robbie Williams.

“I’ve worked with around 100 artists altogether,” he says. “Together we sold loads of records and made loads of money.”

It sounds like the sort of fabulous success that most people can only dream of achieving, but nobody would want to go where Phil went. Far from enjoying the high life, he descended into a prolonged period of darkness. It almost ended in tragedy.

The story was a familiar one. Along with the rock career went the drugs habit. “I didn’t need much persuasion,” he admits. “Heroin, crack, pot, alcohol, I was into all of them.” During one spell, he maintained a three-year, non-stop high. “It was just one uninterrupted bender,” he says.

The habit took its inevitable toll. His career petered out. “My drug habit meant that I couldn’t go on tour,” he says. “I was just not well enough. I was too addicted to be of any use to anybody.”

The drug taking broke up his marriage and family. Over a period of six years, he never set eyes on his son. Once a rich man, his wealth drained away into dealers’ pockets.

In 2005, he hit rock bottom when, cleaned out of all his wealth, he stole a car in a bid to raise money. “Three years before, I’d been sitting in LA playing cards with Robbie Williams,” he says. “Now I was in court, no better than a tramp. That was the lowest point.”

It looked like the endgame to a career that had started with brilliant promise.

Phil, 53, was brought up in Leigh and Hadleigh. He acquired his initial love of music from his mother, a dedicated member of the Salvation Army. “She was a teenager when she had me,” he says, “which meant that she was still buying lots of records. It was she who gave me my first guitar, for Christmas 1970, when I was 12.”

After school, Phil worked at Lloyds bank in London, but not for long. His musical talent had an unstoppable momentum.

Phil, who has returned to the Christian faith of his childhood, believes that this talent comes “direct from God”. Whatever the source, it was impressive enough to allow him to turn professional within a couple of years.

“Almost everything that happened to me came about by word of mouth. I never really had to chase work,” he says. His first major break came after a meeting with Toyah Wilcox, who recognised a fellow spirit as well as a powerful music-maker.

Phil went on tour with Toyah and played on all her major record releases. “That gave me the exposure. Other people like Elton John and Mick Jagger then started to get in touch,” he says.

But the music died, and the glory years were far behind him by the time of his court appearance in 2005.

Mum Christine, who still lives in Hadleigh says: “Sooner or later the drugs were going to kill him, and it was likely to happen sooner rather than later.”

But Phil credits his mother with saving his life. “She never gave up on me,” he says.

Eighteen months earlier, Christine’s researches had found a Salvation Army rehabilitation centre, near Swindon. It was called Gloucester House.

“I thought it offered some hope,” she says. “The course was tough, and it lasted for months. But those stories about stars who pop into the Priory for two weeks and come out cured, you don’t want to believe them. It takes a long, sustained period of commitment if it's going to work.”

At first, Phil was resistant. “It took eighteen months,” he says. “But my mum hung on in. She was the last person left in my life, but she wouldn’t let go. She realised that Gloucester House was the last hope for me, and after the court case I was ready to submit myself. I really had to change, or die. Gloucester House saved my life. If I hadn’t gone there, I would have been dead by Christmas.”

Instead, Gloucester House gave him back his life. Phil says: “I can give lots of reasons why Gloucester House works, but I’d sum it up by saying that they can love you when you can't love yourself.”

Now clean, Phil, shares his time between Hadleigh and Swindon and is training as a drugs councillor. He also performs charity concerts around the country to raise money for Gloucester House’s Buy a Bed – Save a Life campaign.

For now, he has no appetite for returning to the big time. “I still need to stabilise emotionally before I can play with any serious intent. Music still holds a lot of demons for me.

Yet he does take a pride in the songs that came out of that era.. “Moonlight Shadow, with Mike Oldfield. Can you Feel the Love tonight? with Elton John. I’m Too Sexy with Right Said Fred. I still sit and listen to them by myself, like some washed up old film star, watching his old black and white movies.”