Bill Wyman ..................

[Nicklas]

No one talks about this great bassist.

He was the only clever person in the Stones he lived before that became a "funny band".

For me he is rollingstones George Harrison.Not saying much and just strolling behind the two mega stars Richards/Jagger.

How good was he and what songs shall i listen to if i want to hear a good bassline from him.

I have a 3 cd box with the stones singles.

 

[string_dean]

I always liked the bass line to "Live With Me", I think it was on the Let it Bleed album.

 

[James Hart]

He's been discussed a bit. I was never a Stones fan, but I've liked a few tunes and the bass always seemed to fit the songs well.

 

[Joe Nerve]

emotional rescue has a pretty slamming bass line. the thing about wyman that always blew me away was the "feel" he put behind everything he did. his basslines always really flowed out of him, and you can tell that most of the things he played were improvised. his lines aren't rock solid, super tight, the same every verse, with no mistakes - but they're totally in the groove and work perfectly with all the songs they did. keith once said that they look at their songs as paintings, and i think wyman's bass playing really reflects that.

i was just listenting to hot rocks last night and getting back into a stones kick. early on in my playing a friend of mine made me study what brian jones was playing on the flute in ruby tuesday. he said "listen to the emotion in that. feel the heart that was put behind the flute in that song. that's the essence of rock and roll." it ain't about how many notes you can play in a half second, it's about the notes you choose what you can put behind them.

 

[Nicklas]

Brian Jones..........what to say about this great guy. He was very much the stones Mccartney who played everything and i think he was better guitarist then Keith.

For me the rollingstones is the lineup til 1969 when Brian left the band after that the songs are not as good anymore.

Brian even played Saxofone on the Beatles Look up My number.

Brian was a great man and a great musican he will alway stay in my mind!!!!

 

[Blackbird]

Originally posted by Nicklas
No one talks about this great bassist.

Maybe you should try the "Bassists" forum.

 

[scatman]

Miss You and Emotional Rescue.

I know folks may like these songs because they "were disco", but those lines are classic lessons in how to play the downbeat!!!!!!

 

[DW]

I don't have bass heroes, but Bill Wyman has been my main inspiration for nearly 40 years.

In 1989, when Bill was 53, he married his second wife Mandy, who was 19. And they had supposedly been dating for 6 years! Bill and Mandy split a couple of years later, but in 1993, Bill's son Stephen married Mandy's mother Patsy -- who was his stepmother's mother. So by marrying his stepgrandma, Stephen became his own stepgrandpa. And since Bill's mother-in-law was now his daughter-in-law, this meant that Bill's ex-wife Mandy became his step-granddaughter. Now that's what I call inspirational!

Huh? What were we talking about again? Oh yeah...

"Paint It, Black". "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby (Standing In The Shadow)", "Satisfaction", "Mother's Little Helper", "Honky Tonk Women", "19th Nervous Breakdown". All flatpicked, all flatwound, all the time. Played on his homemade fretless or his Framus Star. And that's just for starters.

Bill and Charlie drove the band.

 

[P. Aaron]

What's even more interesting is that most of the great Stones songs Wyman played on, he used the first bass he bought. A $20.00 refinished re-sawn piece of crap. He swore it had the best bass tone he'd ever heard!

But it worked for the Stones.

 

[P. Aaron]

We should at least post a Wyman pic.
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[Marty Forrer]

Haha! That story makes him a hero without even playing a single note!

 

[mojoman566]

I thought Keith Richards played most the bass lines on the Stones classic albums.

 

[Steve Holroyd]

Bill Wyman was good...when he managed to get to play on a Stones record.

He is the first to admit that Keith and Ronnie were more than content to lay down the bass on a track if Bill was not around. I know "Emotional Rescue" was Ron Wood; I think Keith did "Sympathy For The Devil." Many other classics were Bill-free.

 

[P. Aaron]

I thought I'd doctor this pic for a laugh.
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[Blackbird]

Let's do Bill a favor and post a picture of him with a bass he actually liked. Vox approached Wyman to market the teardrop bass as the Bill Wyman model. He never saw a penny of it, then again, he didn't like the bass either.

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[DW]

I thought Keith Richards played most the bass lines on the Stones classic albums.

Many other classics were Bill-free.

This is simply not true. Everything the Stones have done is well-documented, and Bill played on most of the Stones' classic songs. Not all, of course, but there's never been any dispute about who played what.

 

[The Mock Turtle Regulator]

Keef played bass on "Live with me".

Wyman explains in the interview in the Bass Heroes book that often nothing would happen when he was in the studio, then he'd get called away when his children were ill or something, and when he returned the track was done, and Keef or Ron Wood (or Mick Taylor, as on "Tumbling dice") would have put a bass track down!
(on the TOTP2 Stones special even Ron Wood says that on the first Stones album he did, Keef wiped all his guitar tracks from the album, apart from one 12string track!)


you can hear Wyman play some pretty good bass on the Still Life live album- he deviates a lot from the recorded versions in a loose, rambling way.

 

[rickbass]

Originally posted by Nicklas
How good was he and what songs shall i listen to if i want to hear a good bassline from him....

A couple of select picks to me -

> "19th Nervous Breakdown" - after playing a very strong bassline through most of the song, he does this incredible picked slide towards the end of the song. It caused me to get a felt ukelele pick in the late 60's so I could try to duplicate it.

> "Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadows" - Wyman's use of fuzz bass was a revelation at the time

> "Satisfaction" - Instead of playing root to the guitar, he played like an octave higher

Too bad Bill had no stage presence. He was one of the bass innovators.

 

[OiBass]

Also- The Stones were among the first to use the
new, mighty Ampeg SVT's in '69-Check out
"Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out"- or the Sympathy for the
Devil flick- Hell, they were even usin' SVT bass
amps for the guitars-which sounded so good- I can't believe you don't see more guitar players
using them- Oh yeah, guitar players are sissys

 

[DW]

Originally posted by Blackbird
Let's do Bill a favor and post a picture of him with a bass he actually liked. Vox approached Wyman to market the teardrop bass as the Bill Wyman model. He never saw a penny of it, then again, he didn't like the bass either.

That's what he says now. Here's what he posed for then -- looks like he really hates it.

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