For more than thirty years, Bill Wyman had one of the most recognisable jobs in rock music.
He was the bass player in The Rolling Stones.
From the early clubs of the 1960s through stadium tours and some of the biggest records in rock history, Wyman was there — usually standing rather more still than everybody else and quietly getting on with it.
But there has always been considerably more to Bill Wyman than the Rolling Stones.
Born William Perks in south London in 1936, Wyman was already older than most of his future bandmates when he joined the Stones in 1962. He remained with them for three decades, playing on records including Paint It Black, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Honky Tonk Women and Start Me Up.
In 1993, he left.
Walking away from one of the biggest bands in the world might seem an unusual decision, but Wyman had plenty of other interests to occupy him.
He formed Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings, returning to the blues, R&B and early rock and roll that had helped inspire the Stones in the first place.
He became an author and photographer.
And then there’s metal detecting.
Wyman developed a serious interest in archaeology and detecting, spending hours searching fields and countryside for objects left behind by previous generations. It’s an unexpectedly quiet pastime for somebody who spent much of his adult life surrounded by amplifiers, screaming audiences and rock and roll.
But perhaps that contrast tells you something about him.
Wyman has also always been an archivist.
While other people were simply living through the extraordinary events surrounding the Rolling Stones, Bill was keeping things. Letters, photographs, diaries, memorabilia and records of what happened.
Which means he remembers stories.
Lots of them.
And Then There’s Keith Richards…
When you’ve spent three decades in the Rolling Stones, inevitably some of those stories involve Keith Richards.
And one in particular caught our attention.
It concerns Bill, Keith, a backstage encounter and a cigarette.
That probably doesn’t sound particularly remarkable.
Except that the person Keith was about to meet made the cigarette rather more problematic than you might expect.
What happened next is a wonderfully human little moment involving one of rock music’s most famously rebellious figures — and it’s probably not the Keith Richards story you’re expecting.
We’re not going to tell you the rest here.
Because Bill can.
BILL WYMAN — OFF THE RECORD
Bill Wyman’s story is part of Off The Record on RODtv, where we’re returning to more than forty years of our own recordings to uncover the stories behind some of music’s best-known names.
These aren’t simply biographies or lists of greatest hits.
They’re the moments that happened around the edges — backstage, in studios, on the road and sometimes when nobody thought they were particularly important.
Until somebody tells the story years later.
Watch Bill Wyman and discover what happened when Keith Richards suddenly needed a little help from his former bandmate.
