Bill Wyman swaps rock ‘n’ roll for a Chelsea stroll with new history book

The former Rolling Stone wants to encourage Londoners to look up and around as they walk through his part of the city

By Dalya Alberge
13 May 2023


Mr Wyman, now 86, says London has 'so many beautiful buildings and statues, memorials' that 'people just walk past without even glancing'


He comes from a louche world of rock‘n’roll, sex and drugs, but the founding member of the Rolling Stones Bill Wyman is now pursuing more genteel pleasures - encouraging Londoners to appreciate history and architecture that is all around them.

The legendary rocker told The Telegraph: “When you look in the streets at people, they don’t usually look around. They’re usually looking at the ground or they’ve got their mobile phones. They don’t look at the beauty of London as a city… There are so many beautiful buildings and statues, memorials - and people just walk past without even glancing.”

He despairs over the number of people who ignore a plaque in the borough of Chelsea, marking the site of Henry VIII’s manor, just off Oakley Street: “The wall of his garden is still in existence, which is incredible. There’s a plaque there on the side of the wall… But I don’t see many people looking. They just walk straight past…

“Concentration levels seem to be minimal… Most people are not aware of what’s going on in the streets because they don’t look around.”

That is partly why he is publishing a guide to Chelsea this month, where he has lived since 1982.

“I just want to give [people] maybe another way of looking at Chelsea,” he said.



Titled Bill Wyman's Chelsea: From Medieval Village to Cultural Capital, its pages are filled with 300 of some 1,800 photographs that he took while walking every street, focusing on whatever caught his eye - everything from statues to coal-hole covers.

It was in Chelsea that his career took off with the Rolling Stones. In the book’s introduction, he writes of a “cold winter’s day” in December 1962 when he visited the Wetherby Arms pub and met Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones: “It was here that my life would change forever, taking a turn that I could have never believed imaginable.

“I had with me my bass and my three amps… It has been said I brought electricity to the Rollin’ Stones. I joined the band that day. The boys shared a flat down the road at 102 Edith Grove and it was here we would meet up for rehearsals, along with Charlie Watts, who joined the band a month later.”

Their greatest hits include “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and his departure from the iconic group in 1993 shocked the music world.

But he has no regrets: “Not one iota. No, not at all. I never did… They didn’t want me to leave. They were angry with me. They just kept saying you haven’t left… Mick and Charlie came to the flat, talked to me all evening… In the end, they finally accepted it.”

He said of Watts, the dapper drummer who died in 2021: “In the band, we were never the ones out there looking for adulation… We were always tucked away in the background… I don’t like the adulation. I never did. That’s why I always stood in the corner on stage in the shadows.”

He also recalled that he and Watts resisted drugs: “Pretty much every band that was famous lost at least one member through drug or alcohol problems… Charlie and I were the good boys who were always there on time. Always reliable. Always trustworthy.”

Asked whether he still listens to the Stones, he said: “I do, but it’s not the kind of thing I like any more… With the Rhythm Kings, my own band, we were playing different kinds of music which I was enjoying much better… It was great when I was in the [Stones] and I loved every minute of it, but it was time to move on and do different things. I like the variety of music… country music, reggae, blues.”

In his guidebook, he writes of the borough’s history and offers four walking itineraries: historic, literary, artistic and music & fashion. Each singles out important sites, including the homes of a “bewildering number of famous names” - everyone from A.A. Milne, the Winnie-the-Pooh author, to William Wilberforce, the celebrated campaigner against the slave trade.

Mr Wyman writes too of a changing world, with many of the iconic establishments long gone, including fashion shops where velvet suits and stack-heeled boots were bought by the Stones and other rock stars of the era.

The Chelsea Drugstore at 49 King’s Road was revolutionary for its long opening hours, with three floors of “bars, food stalls, a record store, boutiques and, yes, a pharmacy”, he writes. “It is mentioned in the 1969 Rolling Stones song You Can’t Always Get What You Want…It is now, sadly, a McDonald’s restaurant.”

Now 86, he has no intention of retiring. He has just finished a solo album, is working on a book about growing up in wartime London, and is planning photography exhibitions. “I’m always busy,” he said.

[www.telegraph.co.uk]

Very interesting. Bill is always busy it would seem. No regrets about leaving the band - fair play to him.
I do wish he'd either grow a beard/moustache/goatee or shave properly though....

Good "old school sour Bill". I think he regrets leaving the Stones, just like Mick Taylor.

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TheflyingDutchman
Good "old school sour Bill". I think he regrets leaving the Stones, just like Mick Taylor.

Why would be though?

The money? I doubt it, I think he has plenty.
The music? Well he can play any time he wants, and not just Mick and Keith songs.
The adulation from being onstage? Maybe...if there's one thing that could be possible I'd say that but I'm not sure he would care that much at this age.

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treaclefingers

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TheflyingDutchman
Good "old school sour Bill". I think he regrets leaving the Stones, just like Mick Taylor.

Why would be though?

The money? I doubt it, I think he has plenty.
The music? Well he can play any time he wants, and not just Mick and Keith songs.
The adulation from being onstage? Maybe...if there's one thing that could be possible I'd say that but I'm not sure he would care that much at this age.

If they let him play more than one song back in 2013 (or whenever it was) he would have taken the plane to the US and replace Mr Darryl Jones. Not for one song. Now that's true love. Going back to your axe after 20+ years under your own terms.

Interesting that most of the interview is about his music, not his book.

How funny to see this article today as only the night before last we had a bite to eat at the Ivy Chelsea Garden in the Kings Road and who should come in and sit at the next table but one to us than Bill and his wife. He certainly looked to be in good form and very animated, enjoying his evening. I am sure Bill’s Chelsea will be an interesting read.

nice to see bill is still doing things

will pick up his book eventually

by the way was anyone here at the q&a he did at a gallery in london last month?

i recall talk of it here before it happened but never found any mention of it or a thread

The biggest mistake the Stones ever made was getting angry at Bill and trying to get him to stay and having this “ you’re in or out “ attitude.

If they would have just asked him to play on the records on the rare occasions they made one they could’ve sounded like the Stones.
Those rhythm sections from the great bands are irreplaceable.Bonham/Jones, Moon/Ox , Mitchell/Redding, and yes even Ringo and Paul.

I’m far from a Jagger basher but when he actually said” it can’t be that hard playing bass in The Rolling Stones I thought he was joking.
How a musician that accomplished could be that clueless is something that escapes me to this day.
And he( I’m not joking) said “it’s only four strings” and then proceeded to “play bass” on several tracks on that abortion that lived “ A Bigger Bang.
Great Mick, why did we even need Charlie, they’re just a few drums you hit with a stick.

Bill is awesome, he doesn’t do that modern day crap where everyone is judged by how “ nice” they are.he’s an old Stone, more from the days when they were wearing sunglasses and nearly blowing cigarette smoke in an interviewers face than the smiley face cool grandpas the band are today.
I know it upsets the hero worshippers when he puts Mick and Keith in their place but I find it hilarious.

Interesting idea to have Bill play on the records...but he didn't play much on DW or SW did he, so his influence/coloring of the sound was already a distant memory when he left, gone were the days of Miss You or ER.

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IORR Links : Essential Studio Outtakes CDs : Audio - History of Rarest Outtakes : Audio

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gotdablouse
Interesting idea to have Bill play on the records...but he didn't play much on DW or SW did he, so his influence/coloring of the sound was already a distant memory when he left, gone were the days of Miss You or ER.

Bass on ER 4 out of 10 songs are played by Ronnie, 1 song by Keith, so Bill only plays bass on 5 songs.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023-05-14 21:34 by Testify.

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lem motlow
The biggest mistake the Stones ever made was getting angry at Bill and trying to get him to stay and having this “ you’re in or out “ attitude.

If they would have just asked him to play on the records on the rare occasions they made one they could’ve sounded like the Stones.
Those rhythm sections from the great bands are irreplaceable.Bonham/Jones, Moon/Ox , Mitchell/Redding, and yes even Ringo and Paul.

I’m far from a Jagger basher but when he actually said” it can’t be that hard playing bass in The Rolling Stones I thought he was joking.
How a musician that accomplished could be that clueless is something that escapes me to this day.
And he( I’m not joking) said “it’s only four strings” and then proceeded to “play bass” on several tracks on that abortion that lived “ A Bigger Bang.
Great Mick, why did we even need Charlie, they’re just a few drums you hit with a stick.

Bill is awesome, he doesn’t do that modern day crap where everyone is judged by how “ nice” they are.he’s an old Stone, more from the days when they were wearing sunglasses and nearly blowing cigarette smoke in an interviewers face than the smiley face cool grandpas the band are today.
I know it upsets the hero worshippers when he puts Mick and Keith in their place but I find it hilarious.

I think you're spot on, I'm trying to play bass and there's definitely real work involved. Good idea from Bill for a book.

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Testify

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gotdablouse
Interesting idea to have Bill play on the records...but he didn't play much on DW or SW did he, so his influence/coloring of the sound was already a distant memory when he left, gone were the days of Miss You or ER.

Bass on ER 4 out of 10 songs are played by Ronnie, 1 song by Keith, so Bill only plays bass on 5 songs.

And ER not what you would consider an A level Stones record. Ronnie did a great job on Emotional Rescue, but Bill makes She's So Cold. On Sticky Fingers, arguably their best, he's on every cut. He's not on a lot of Exile tracks, but he sure as hell is on Rock Off, that kicks it off. He didn't play my on Dirty Work, but he played on the best of it, his tour de force on Harlem Shuffle, and One Hit To The Body.

Don't know why folks have to get so hot under the collar about this and make it into some kind of adversarial debate.

Bill decided he couldn't be doing with it any more, had become averse to flying and decided to leave. The other's didn't want him to...but he did.

Were the Stones better with him...of course they were...but what happened wasn't anybody's "fault" .

I'll be buying that.

Few of the comments in this thread are related to the "Chelsea" book. It seems like many feel the need to talk about Bill Wyman in general here. There should be a separate generic "Bill Wyman talks" thread.

Bjornulf

Agreed. Just like the Mick Taylor thread.

Here is the plaque which Bill mentions in the interview (he despairs as people walk past and ignore it) -

Didn’t Bill find Roman coins and artifacts on his estate. He sounds like a very interesting guy and the book will be good when I’m visiting London next timeIn addition to being the best rock bass guitarist he has insights into history



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023-05-15 18:09 by Taylor1.

Today's The Times:

What a clickbait header. In the Times?

Waking up this thread but my book just arrived !