Within the Rolling Stones, Bill Wyman, who spent three decades as the rock juggernaut's bassist, stood out.
His quiet presence aligned with his rhythm section comrade in the band, the late drummer Charlie Watts, and stood in stark contrast to the headline-grabbing (for decades) lifestyles and exploits of frontman Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards.
The story of how Wyman came to play the bass even happens to be an example of his cool personality.
Three years prior to the Stones' formation, in 1962, Wyman was part of a newly formed quintet that quickly encountered an age-old problem.
Asked in a new interview with Louder how he ended up on the four-string, Wyman said, “When I was forming my band in South London, three years prior to joining the Stones, there were three guitarists, and I said, ‘Somebody’s got to play bass.’ The lead guitarist said, ‘I’m not.’ The rhythm guitarist said, ‘I’m not.’ So I said, ‘I suppose I’m gonna have to do it.’”
Not satisfied with the existing bass options that he could afford, Wyman simply decided to build one himself.
“I didn’t have a bass guitar, so I had to make one,” he explained to Louder. “Unknown to me at the time, I built the first fretless bass. Invented it, so I’m told, about five years before they came out.”
When I pulled the frets out, it suddenly sounded really good!
In an interview with Bass Player, Wyman elaborated on the DIY build, saying, “I’d seen Gibson and Fender bass guitars in pictures of Little Richard’s and Fats Domino’s bands, so I drew a shape like one of those on the back of my bass and I had my next-door neighbor saw it down. I bevelled the edges, took off all the paint, and put in a new Baldwin pickup.
“Still,” he went on, “it rattled with every note because the frets were so worn. I figured I’d just pull out all the frets and put in new ones when I could afford some. But when I pulled them out, it suddenly sounded really good! So I never put frets back in.
“I think it was the first fretless bass ever. I used it on every Stones album and many of the singles up to 1975. From early R&B covers like I’m a King Bee to the period of 19th Nervous Breakdown – it’s got the sound.”
The 88-year-old Wyman recently released his ninth solo album, Drive My Car, and even, last year, reunited with his old bandmates in the studio for the first time in three decades.
Filling in for the absent Darryl Jones – alongside Keith Richards, long-serving Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood, and even Paul McCartney – Wyman took care of low-end duties on Live by the Sword, a song from the Stones' recent Hackney Diamonds album.
