Music career
Wyman took piano lessons from age 10 to 13. A year after his marriage on 24 October 1959 to Diane Cory, an 18-year-old bank clerk, he bought a Burns electric guitar for £52 (equivalent to £1,274 in 2021[8]) on hire-purchase, but was not satisfied by his progress.[9] He switched to bass guitar after hearing one at a Barron Knights concert. He created a fretless electric bass guitar[10] by removing[11] the frets on a second hand UK-built Dallas Tuxedo bass[12][13] and played this in a south London band, the Cliftons, in 1961.
He legally changed his surname to Wyman in August 1964, taking the phonetic surname of a friend, Lee Whyman, with whom he had done national service in the Royal Air Force from 1955 to 1957.[14]
The Rolling Stones and 1980s side projects
When drummer Tony Chapman told him that a rhythm and blues band called the Rolling Stones needed a bass player, he auditioned at a pub in Chelsea on 7 December 1962 and was hired as a successor to Dick Taylor.[15] The band were impressed by his instrument and amplifiers (one of which Wyman modified himself, and a Vox AC30).[15][16] Wyman was the oldest member of the group.[17]
In addition to playing bass, Wyman frequently provided backing vocals on early records, and through 1967, in concert as well. He wrote and sang lead on the track "In Another Land" from the album Their Satanic Majesties Request, which was released as a single and credited solely to Wyman, making it his first official solo single. The song is one of two Wyman compositions released by the Rolling Stones; the second is "Downtown Suzie" (sung by Mick Jagger), on Metamorphosis, a collection of Rolling Stones outtakes. The title "Downtown Suzie" was chosen by their erstwhile manager Allen Klein without consulting Wyman or the band. The original title was "Sweet Lisle Lucy", named after Lisle Street, a street in the red light district in Soho, London.[citation needed]
Wyman was close to Brian Jones; they usually shared rooms while on tour and often went to clubs together.[18] He and Jones hung out together even when Jones was distancing himself from the band. Wyman was distraught when he heard the news of Jones' death, being one of two members (Watts was the other) to attend Jones' funeral in July 1969. Wyman was also friends with guitarist Mick Taylor. Like the other Rolling Stones, he has worked with Taylor since the latter's departure from the band in 1974.[19]
Wyman has kept a journal throughout his life, beginning when he was a child, and used it in writing his 1990 autobiography Stone Alone and his 2002 book Rolling with the Stones. In Stone Alone, Wyman states that he composed the riff of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" with Brian Jones and drummer Charlie Watts. Wyman mentions that "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" was released as a single only after a 3–2 vote within the band: Wyman, Watts and Jones voted for, Jagger and Keith Richards against, feeling it not sufficiently commercial.[citation needed]
Wyman also played on The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions, released 1971, with Howlin' Wolf, Eric Clapton, Charlie Watts and Stevie Winwood, and on the album Jamming with Edward, released in 1972, with Ry Cooder, Nicky Hopkins, Jagger and Watts. He played bass on at least two tracks of the 1967 album I Can Tell by John P. Hammond.[20]
In July 1981, Wyman's solo single "(Si Si) Je Suis un Rock Star" became a top-20 hit in many countries.[21] Also in 1981, Wyman composed the soundtrack album Green Ice for the Ryan O'Neal/Omar Sharif film of the same name.[citation needed] In the mid-1980s, he composed music for two films by Italian director Dario Argento: Phenomena (1985) and Terror at the Opera (1987).[citation needed]
In 1983, Wyman helped organize a fundraiser for Action Research into Multiple Sclerosis in the form of a concert tour with a group calling themselves Willie and the Poor Boys. The group played shows in the U.S. and the UK that included a rotating group of guest musicians, including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. The effort was inspired by Wyman's friend and former Small Faces and Faces musician Ronnie Lane.[22] The group produced an album of the same name that lists Wyman, Charlie Watts, Geraint Watkins, Mickey Gee, and Andy Fairweather Low as principal members, plus Ray Cooper, Jimmy Page, Willie Garnett, Chris Rea, Steve Gregory, Paul Rodgers, Kenney Jones, Henry Spinetti, and Terry Williams.
Wyman made a cameo appearance in the 1987 film Eat the Rich. He produced and played on a few[quantify] albums of the group Tucky Buzzard.[23]
After the Rolling Stones' 1989–90 Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tours, Wyman left the band in January 1993.[24] The Rolling Stones have continued to record and tour with Darryl Jones on bass, but not as an official member of the band.[25]
Later activity
Wyman formed the cross-generational Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings in 1997. The band featured a regularly rotating line-up of musicians and performed covers of blues, soul, rock 'n' roll, jazz, and occasional Rolling Stones songs. Wyman rarely performed vocals, but typically sang lead vocals on the Chuck Berry song "You Never Can Tell" and the Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Women".
He was a judge for the 5th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.[26]
On 25 October 2009, Wyman performed a reunion show with Faces, filling in for the late Ronnie Lane as he had previously done in 1986 and 1993.[27][28]
On 19 April 2011, pianist Ben Waters released an Ian Stewart tribute album titled Boogie 4 Stu. Wyman played on two tracks: "Rooming House Boogie" and "Watchin' the River Flow", the latter recorded with the Rolling Stones.[29]
In 2012, Wyman and Mick Taylor were expected to join the Rolling Stones on stage at shows in London (25 and 29 November) and Newark (13 and 15 December), though Darryl Jones supplied the bass for the majority of the show.[30][31] At the London shows on 25 and 29 November, Wyman played on two back-to-back songs, "It's Only Rock 'n Roll" and "Honky Tonk Women". He later stated that he was not interested in joining the band for further tour dates in 2013.[32]
He participated in a 2019 documentary, directed and written by Oliver Murray, titled The Quiet One, about his life and career.[33]
Wyman briefly returned to recording with the Rolling Stones in 2023, playing bass on one track on their album Hackney Diamonds.[34] It was the first time he had appeared on a Rolling Stones studio recording since 1991.
Musical instruments
Wyman's bass sound came not only from his 30-inch short-scale fretless bass (the so-called "homemade" bass; actually a modified Dallas Tuxedo bass),[35] but also from the "walking bass" style he adopted, inspired by Willie Dixon and Ricky Fenson.[citation needed] Wyman has played a number of basses, nearly all short scale, including a Framus Star bass and a number of other Framus basses,[36][37] a Vox Teardrop bass (issued as a Bill Wyman signature model), a Fender Mustang Bass, two Ampeg Dan Armstrong basses, a Gibson EB-3, and a Travis Bean bass. Since the late 1980s, Wyman has primarily played Steinberger basses. In 2011, The Bass Centre in London issued the Wyman Bass, a fretted interpretation of Wyman's first "homemade" fretless bass, played and endorsed by Wyman.[38] One of Wyman's basses, his 1969 Fender Mustang Bass, sold at auction for $380,000 in 2020, at the time the highest price ever for a bass.[39]