Bill Wyman released a new album last month. There are limited copies that are autographed available for a short time at:

[shop.badlands.co.uk]Badlands




Strictly Limited Autographed Edition (Only whilst stocks last).

'Back To Basics' does exactly what it says on the tin. It is unashamedly stripped back. The snappy lyrics are refreshingly audible and the instrumentation is clean, subtle and accomplished.

'Back To Basics' wears its influences on its sleeve - Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, JJ Cale - and there's more than a passing nod to Bill's own English background. It is that rare thing, a meld of styles and genres that actually work together - uplifting in a jaunty, dancey way and pensive in a bluesy, narrative way.

As might be expected from one of the world's best known bass players Back To Basics drives along with a rhythmic muscularity, and then slows the pace for more autobiographical lyric and melody. It is an album that warrants repeated play. It is also an album that's long overdue.

Bill Wyman's last solo UK album, 'Bill Wyman', was released in 1982. 'Back To Basics' comprises only his fourth ever UK solo release. But Bill has not been idle of course. 31 years in the Rolling Stones, author of seven learned books, globally exhibited photographer, metal detecting expert with his own brand of metal detector, producer, composer for film and TV and founder of the very successful 'Rhythm Kings', who still release CD's and tour regularly - he has had a pretty full calendar. It was only when archiving old demos last year he realized he had around 60 songs he'd never released.
He chose three songs that needed reworking and did just that. He put them together with a bunch of brand new songs and went into his studio to record them. The CD comprises 12 tracks in total, eight of which are brand new songs. Musicians joining Bill in the studio include long time collaborator/guitarist Terry Taylor, Guy Fletcher (Mark Knopfler), Graham Broad and Robbie McIntosh, while co-production credit goes to Andy Wright (Jeff Beck, Eurythmics, Simply Red).

On Bill Wyman's 'Back To Basics' you get music that's the real deal...and you're all the better for it.

Listen to the album here:
[www.propermusic.com]

Back To Basics wears its influences on its sleeve – Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, JJ Cale – and there’s more than a passing nod to Bill’s own English background. It is that rare thing, a meld of styles and genres that actually work together – uplifting in a jaunty, dancey way and pensive in a bluesy, narrative way.
As might be expected from one of the world’s best known bass players Back To Basics drives along with a rhythmic muscularity, and then slows the pace for more autobiographical lyric and melody. It is an album that warrants repeated play. It is also an album that’s long overdue.
Bill Wyman’s last solo UK album, ‘Bill Wyman’, was released in 1982. Back To Basics comprises only his fourth ever UK solo release. But Bill has not been idle of course. 31 years in the Rolling Stones, author of seven learned books, globally exhibited photographer, metal detecting expert with his own brand of metal detector, producer, composer for film and TV and founder of the very successful Rhythm Kings’, who still release CD’s and tour regularly – he has had a pretty full calendar. It was only when archiving old demos last year he realised he had around 60 songs he’d never released.

He chose three songs that needed reworking and did just that. He put them together with a bunch of brand new songs and went into his studio to record them. The CD comprises 12 tracks in total, eight of which are brand new songs. Musicians joining Bill in the studio include long time collaborator/guitarist Terry Taylor, Guy Fletcher (Mark Knopfler), Graham Broad and Robbie McIntosh, while co-production credit goes to Andy Wright (Jeff Beck, Eurythmics, Simply Red).

On Bill Wyman’s Back To Basics you get music that’s the real deal… and you’re all the better for it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-07-05 12:27 by exilestones.

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Bill Wyman will release his first UK solo album in 33 years when Back To Basics arrives on June 22, 2015

The former Rolling Stone’s 12-track title comes after he discovered over 60 unused demos in his archive. Three of those appear on the album, while the others are brand-new.

Wyman says: “Initially I thought, ‘I’m a bit old for this’ – but then I thought, ‘All the old blues musicians played till they dropped, so why don’t I give it a go?’”
Bill was joined in the studio by longtime collaborator Terry Taylor, Mark Knopfler’s colleague Guy Fletcher plus Graham Broad and Robbie McIntosh.
Back To Basics is described as “clean, subtle and accomplished” with “snappy lyrics” and “rhythmic muscularity.”

Tracklist
1. What & If & When & Why
2. I Lost My Ring
3. Love, Love, Love
4. Stuff (Can’t Get Enough)
5. Running Back To You
6. She’s Wonderful
7. Seventeen
8. I’ll Pull You Through
9. November
10. Just A Friend Of Mine
11. It’s A Lovely Day
12. I Got Time

Digital-only bonus track: 13. Exciting

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Stone me! Bill and Co just keep on rolling... Wyman goes Back To Basics on his latest album
By ADRIAN THRILLS FOR THE DAILY MAIL


BILL WYMAN: Back To Basics (Proper)
Verdict: An old Stone rolls on

THE ROLLING STONES: Sticky Fingers (Polydor)

Verdict: The ’70s started here
Always an outsider in The Rolling Stones, despite his 31 years with the band, Bill Wyman has, unsurprisingly, been the most productive solo performer to have passed through the world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll circus.

Frustrated at the way Mick Jagger and Keith Richards monopolised the songwriting — the U.S. 1967 single In Another Land was a rare writing credit — Wyman began releasing his own material long before leaving the Stones in 1993, and he still tours constantly with his blues band the Rhythm Kings.

But, with his extra-curricular activities extending to designing his own metal detectors and running the Sticky Fingers bistro in London, the 78-year-old bassist hasn’t actually made a fully-fledged solo album for 33 years. Back To Basics redresses the balance.

‘I thought I was too old for this,’ says the former Stone. ‘But all the old blues musicians played until they dropped, so I thought I’d give it a go.’

As such, Back To Basics is akin to Ringo Starr’s recent Postcards From Paradise: a likeable — if hardly essential — record from a rock icon with nothing to prove.
Wyman started writing again after finding 60 unreleased tracks as he archived old demo tapes last year. Three of the songs have found their way onto this 12-track album, with the other nine coming from sessions with a band that includes Mark Knopfler’s keyboardist Guy Fletcher and singer Beverley Skeete.

Back To Basics begins promisingly. Built around sprightly horns and jagged guitars, What & How & If & When & Why combines buoyancy with an underlying air of criminal menace in its lyrical references to guns and money lending.

I Lost My Ring is even better. A funky shuffle with half-spoken vocals, it recalls the late Ian Dury.
As Wyman originally wrote his 1981 single Je Suis Un Rock Star for Dury, this isn’t as far-fetched as it might first seem.
Stuff (Can’t Get Enough), is also funky — although there is something incongruous about lessons on the evils of money from a rock star with one home in the English countryside and another in the South of France.
The album also loses momentum as it progresses. Wyman’s vocals often lack passion. It is left to Skeete, a mainstay of British dance music and R&B since the Eighties, to add sparkle.

But, with the bassist’s mischievous side to the fore on Just A Friend Of Mine, a song about cheating lovers, there are enough echoes of Wyman’s high life rolling with the Stones to make it more than just a vanity project.
Things weren’t always as polite. Back in 1971, Wyman was still an integral part of a band in its prime — and the Stones’ first album of the decade was one of their best.

Sticky Fingers, out again in an array of formats, captured the Stones’ transformation from social outlaws with a whiff of danger into stadium-filling members of the burgeoning rock aristocracy.

Made in Alabama and London, it was a grab-bag of styles fitted seamlessly together.

From the dirty, two-chord showboating of Brown Sugar to the full-on country swing of Dead Flowers and the balladry of Wild Horses, it added layers to a classic sound.

With Jagger and Richards delving even deeper into American blues, Sticky Fingers also benefited from the presence of new lead guitarist Mick Taylor.
The bonus tracks are of a surprisingly high standard, too. There’s an acoustic run through Wild Horses and an alternate Dead Flowers, plus a new take on Brown Sugar with Eric Clapton adding blistering slide guitar.


[www.dailymail.co.uk]

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Back To Basics does exactly what it says on the tin. It is unashamedly stripped back. The snappy lyrics are refreshingly audible and the instrumentation is clean, subtle and accomplished.

Back To Basics wears its influences on its sleeve - Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, JJ Cale - and there's more than a passing nod to Bill's own English background. It is that rare thing, a meld of styles and genres that actually work together - uplifting in a jaunty, dancey way and pensive in a bluesy, narrative way.

As might be expected from one of the world's best known bass players Back To Basics drives along with a rhythmic muscularity, and then slows the pace for more autobiographical lyric and melody. It is an album that warrants repeated play. It is also an album that's long overdue...

Bill Wyman's last solo UK album, Bill Wyman, was released in 1982. Back To Basics comprises only his fourth UK solo release. But Bill has not been idle of course. 31 years in the Rolling Stones, author of seven learned books, globally exhibited photographer, metal detecting expert with his own brand of metal detector, producer, composer for film and TV and founder of the very successful Rhythm Kings who release CDs and tour regularly - he has had a pretty full calendar. It was only when archiving old demos last year he realised he had around 60 songs he'd never released. He chose three songs that needed reworking and did just that. He put them together with a bunch of brand new songs and went into his studio to record them.

The CD comprises 12 tracks in total, eight of which are new songs. Musicians joining Bill in the studio include long time collaborator/guitarist Terry Taylor, Guy Fletcher (Mark Knopfler), Graham Broad and Robbie McIntosh while co-production credit goes to Andy Wright (Jeff Beck, Eurythmics, Simply Red).

On Bill Wyman's Back To Basics you get music that's the real deal...and you're all the better for it.

[avxhome.se]

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Bill Wyman – What & How & If & When & Why
May 31, 2015 Gareth Fraser 2015, Bill Wyman, New Music 1 comment
Most artists put out a record every couple of years. Occasionally they leave it a decade or so or, at a push, even two. But 33 years is going some. Unbelievably, it’s been that long since Bill Wyman, illustrious ex-Rolling Stone bass player, released his last UK solo CD. And Back To Basics is only his fourth UK solo album.

Back To Basics features 12 tracks in total, including three reworked demos and nine brand new songs. It’s a record that crosses various genres; it’s stripped back, pared down, polished and – most important of all – immensely likeable.
We will be reviewing the album in the coming weeks, but until then you can listen to the track ‘What & How & If & When & Why’ below.

Sounding a little like a cross between Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen with a passing nod towards Ian Dury, ‘What & How & If & When & Why’ is driven along by its gritty vocals and strong rhythm section. Its insistent beat combined with covertly menacing lyrics make for a compelling combination.

YouTube: [www.youtube.com]

& [www.youtube.com] I Got Time (Snippet)

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Is there an easy way to capture this interview?

[www.bbc.co.uk]

Bill talks with Simon Mayo – talks about the Stones, writing Jumping Jack Flash and his new album “Back to the Basics.” Mentions some of these tracks come from the 1970’s and 1980’s and how busy he has been.

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Former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman hasn't released a proper solo album since his 1982's self-titled effort, but that's about to change. The 78-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer will release a new album titled Back to Basics on June 22 in the U.K.

Back to Basics features 12 tracks, eight of them original compositions. Three of the new tunes came together after Wyman discovered dozens of songs he'd never released among some old demos that he had amassed. The artists who contributed to the project include ex-Dire Straits keyboardist Guy Fletcher, one-time Paul McCartney and Pretenders guitarist Robbie McIntosh, and two of Wyman's Rhythm Kings band mates, guitarist Terry Taylor and drummer Graham Broad.

Among the songwriters who influenced Wyman on the new record are Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and JJ Cale, while Bill also looks to his British homeland for inspiration.
A limited number of autographed copies of Back to Basics are available for pre-order now at ProperMusic.com.

Read more at [www.gold1043.com.au]




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Basically, Bill Wyman
Ex-Stone rolls alone…again!

The erratic and convoluted machinations of Axl Rose in the wake of Guns N’ Roses’ 1993 album, ‘The Spaghetti Incident?’ meant that it took 15 years for its follow-up, ‘Chinese Democracy’ to finally see the light of day. It wasn’t worth the wait. Kevin Shields, meanwhile, spent the best part of 21 years crafting and perfecting ‘mbv’, the long-awaited continuation of the My Bloody Valentine legacy after ‘Loveless’, which finally dropped in 2013. Oh, and The Eagles? They were 28 years between ‘The Long Run’ in 1979 and ‘Long Road Out Of Eden’ in 2007 – it took a quarter of a century for them to get their shit together and squeeze all their egos into the studio one final time.
Thankfully for Bill Wyman, the 33-year-gap between his last solo record and his new album, ‘Back To Basics’, has been relatively trauma-free. Well, in terms of the music, anyway…
Since officially leaving The Rolling Stones in 1993, Bill has largely hung up his bass in favour of many varied pursuits outside of music (as he shall explain), with the exception of performing and touring with his blues collective, The Rhythm Kings. A flash of inspiration from recently unearthed demos, however, impelled him to revive his solo offerings.
‘Back To Basics’ suits the 78-year-old well. Inspired by the stark simplicity of Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and JJ Cale, his fourth album presents 12 stripped-back songs that fuse blues, rock and roll, and R&B; a combination of newly-written songs, those that evolved from the rediscovered demos, and a handful mined and reworked from Bill’s own back catalogue. Each pushes his deep, gruff voice to the fore, his distinctly English tone injecting an idiosyncratic theme to proceedings.
Clash sat with Bill in his West London Stones-themed restaurant, Sticky Fingers, to discuss his return to recording, his model ex-girlfriends, and his OCD tendencies.

- - -
In the 33 years since your last album (1982’s ‘Bill Wyman’), you’ve focused your time on your various other talents and interests. What part does music play in your life now?

Well, it’s not the complete thing as it was in the Stones - but even then, I did do other things when I was in the Stones. I did do photography, and I did movie scores, and I worked on other people’s albums and things like that, but since I left I’ve just gone into a mass of stuff. I’ve written seven books on a variety of subjects - not only music. I’ve done archaeology and found Roman sites and Iron Age coins and things, and opened special events for the big museums in England. I’ve done photo exhibitions around the world. I’ve raised a new family of three teenage daughters. I’ve got the restaurant [Sticky Fingers] going - 26th anniversary last week, which is amazing. And so it goes on.
And then I‘ve got The Rhythm Kings, which I’ve had for 17 years, and done about eight albums with them, so I’ve been pretty busy. So I didn’t really have time to do another solo album, and it was one of the last things I thought about, but last year, songs started appearing and then I thought, ‘Oh, what the hell. I’ll do it.’ And then I thought, ‘Am I too old to get into this again?’ (Laughs) But then I thought, well, the Stones are still doing it; blues artists played ’til they dropped - so do classical musicians, poets, writers, sculptors and everybody, so what the hell.

Tell me about the demos that sparked off this album. Where did you find them? Had you forgotten about them?

No. I’m always going through stuff on my iTunes - new stuff, roots stuff, early jazz and blues - and in between it, of course, is lots of my stuff and Stones stuff and everybody else, and as I was playing through, suddenly up comes one of my old demo songs. There was a few, and I thought, ‘I should do something with a few of those, because some of them are quite nice.’ I’d kind of forgotten that they were from the ’70s and ’80s. But I found two or three really nice songs there, so I had a go at them, and then I took three songs from previous albums, which I thought had gone by the board without anybody noticing and I really liked the songs, so I re-did them in a different way, and then I wrote about eight new ones, and put it all together.

Did it all start flowing easily?

Oh yeah, once you get going, yeah, it just flows. The problem in the old days, when I used to do solo albums and movie scores and things, was I always had great difficulty with lyrics. I could always write songs, melodies and arrangements and all that, but I always had problems writing the lyrics. When I started working with The Rhythm Kings - I was writing songs for The Rhythm Kings and I’ve probably written about 30 or more songs over the years - lyrics became easier and easier, and when I did this album, they just flowed, and so it was not difficult at all. Everybody that hears this album comes out with one word, which explains it all. From Bob Geldof to Mick Hucknall to everybody else that I’ve every played it to, they say, ‘The lyrics are a bit quirky, aren’t they?’ (Laughs) So I do “quirky” lyrics, apparently!

There’s a stripped-back sound to the album, so it’s putting the vocals and the lyrics to the fore. You must have known that there was going to be a focus on them in that clean production?

Well, I used to sink my vocals into the tracks, because I was always shy about my voice and the way I was singing, and try to let the music tell the story. But on this one, I thought what the hell. After listening to and being influenced on this by people like JJ Cale, Tom Waits, John Prine, Leonard Cohen and people like that, I thought, ‘Well, I gotta get them lyrics right out there and let the songs tell the story.’ So that’s what I did: I pulled my voice out. But I did start to sing in different ways. I sing lower - like the people I’ve just mentioned - instead of singing higher, like trying to be pop stuff, and I liked it much better.
- - -

It’s easier to get famous now for five minutes, not for life, like it was in the past.
- - -
In the song ‘Stuff (Can’t Get Enough)’ you sing, “Money will be the death of me”. I’ve just re-read your autobiography, Stone Alone, and it’s evident that since the early days of the Stones, you have always been wary of watching where your money goes…

Well, someone had to. The others just didn’t give a shit, and we ended up losing everything all the time.

When were you actually able to start enjoying the fruits of your labour?

When we went to France in ’71. We became non-resident, and left England and a Labour government that had tax at 83-93%, which was a joke. If you earned £100 you got £7. It was just, ‘Get out of here!’ And everybody with any talent left England - all the scientists, writers, and actors like Michael Caine… Everybody left - we left - because you can’t live on 93% tax. And so we went to France, and from that day on we paid a sensible amount of tax in France, but we were able to improve our situation and start to enjoy a better life - especially there with the weather, the food, the wine, the climate, the ambience.

You’re quite harsh to the young subject of the song ‘Seventeen’…

It’s a bit cruel, actually. It’s about failed models, really. I used to have lots of model girlfriends in the ’70s and early-’80s - in Paris, particularly; they were all over the bloody place! I just saw how hard they tried to be someone, and then they’d get the opportunity to do something and they’d fail, basically, because they weren’t cut out to be a movie star. They were a model. They were a successful model…and then they want to go on and improve their lives in a different way, and they usually fail. It is about a particular American model, but I won’t mention her name.

I heard in the song you being critical of someone that was trying to be someone they’re not for the sake of fame: “It’s just an image / She made a break with reality”.
Well, you have a lot of that in the present day with young p
eople, don’t you?

That’s what I wanted to ask: do you think it’s easier to get famous now than it was when you first started out?

It’s easier to get famous now for five minutes, not for life, like it was in the past. I mean, anybody can be famous for five minutes now - travel in a stretch limousine for a couple of weeks and then be unheard of six months later. It’s very easy and it happens all the time, which is a bit of a shame, but that’s the way life is at the moment. In the other days, you had to do your apprenticeship.
You had to really learn what to do: how to arrange a show, how to behave and say the right things at interviews, wear the right clothes that you chose yourself…and just do it the hard way, and learn your trade and learn how to play by listening to other people for years and years, and just get better and better, and do it because you just want to do it for the love of it - not to become rich and famous.That was the last thing you thought about in those days, because you couldn’t become rich and famous in the ’60s playing blues, which we did, because it was a music that no-one was listening to, no-one bought, and it just slowly grew and we were very lucky in that way. But we did play great, and we were a great band, so that’s what made us successful.
But now I tend to find kids want to go into the business to become rich and famous, and that’s their ultimate desire, and it’s the wrong way around, because you’ve got to learn how to do it. You can’t want to be a footballer and go on a football pitch if you don’t know how to tackle, pass the ball, score a goal or save one - you can’t become a sportsman if you don’t go through the learning and all that, and the same applies to music, really.

I know you consider yourself quite an organised, methodical, person…

Well, I am a bit OCD. You’ve seen me straightening this [napkin] up. I’ve been doing that while we’ve been talking. I just do it. I have to do things like that. I’m uncomfortable seeing that [cutlery squint] like that. They have to be [straight]. It does worry me. (Laughs)

This may explain your collector tendencies. You’re well known for your large collection of personal artifacts and memorabilia from throughout the years, and your love for collecting in general. You mention in your autobiography some old records you recalled buying. Do you still have your original record collection?

Oh yeah. Yeah, I’ve got about 7000 albums, and about 400 singles and EPs. I’ve got a few 78s - not many, because they all got smashed. But yeah, I’ve collected all my life, and I’ve got the most incredible collections of stuff now. Every time I have someone with a project and they come and see my collection they’re just gob smacked, because they never imagined it could be that much. I’ve got all the records, I’ve got scrapbooks, Stones scrapbooks - hundreds of them - autograph books with photos, drawings, poems and all kind of stuff in them. I’ve got stamp collections, tonnes of home movies, coin collections, I’ve got collections of all my archaeological finds - 6000 items. It just goes on and on and on.

So it‘s all in a very big garage somewhere?

I’m not telling you where it is! (Laughs)

Finally, I really wanted to ask you a quick question about Brian Jones, as you were perhaps the closest friend he had in the band – you’d often share hotel rooms…and girls! Were you disappointed by the fact that only you and Charlie attended his funeral on behalf of the Stones?

Well, of course. It was out of order. The only ones to come were me and Charlie. There were a lot of peripheral people around the Stones that never turned up. No, it was disgusting. It really was disgusting. It was awful. It showed guilt. It showed the guilt by them of the way they treated him. Do you know that in Dartford Railway Station where [Mick and Keith] met, they’ve just put up a plaque now saying they created The Rolling Stones, which is totally out of order. I’ve had a few friends write to them and complain, saying: ‘It’s totally out of order. Brian Jones created The Rolling Stones, not Mick and Keith. They were invited into his band at later times,’ and they completely ignore it, because they want the accolade for Dartford.
But it’s so wrong, and I hate stuff like that, where people try to rewrite history for themselves. It’s so wrong. I was thinking of getting a couple of heavies and going down there and just ripping it off, and getting back on the train back to London. I’ve really been thinking about the possibility of doing it, because it’s so wrong.

There are not enough people who stand up for Brian.

No, but Mick and Keith should stand up and say, ‘No, this is wrong. We didn’t create The Rolling Stones, Brian Jones did. Brian Jones chose the name The Rolling Stones, Brian Jones decided what music we would play, and Brian Jones enlisted every member into his band in 1962 and ’63.’ That’s what they should say, but they ain’t going to, are they? (Laughs)

[www.clashmusic.com]


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It's nice to see old Bill doing good music!
Cheers!

Just put my copy on today.
Wow!!!

It's great!

It's Groovier than the latest from Keith, Mick or the Stones by far!

Still has Bill's cheeky lyrics and understated spoken vocals.. like a groovy Tom Waits.