You are in the Special Features section - Bill Wyman Interview

Digger talks to Bill Wyman, ex-bass player with The Rolling Stones who is enjoying a renaissance heading his own band of Rhythm Kings while pursuing several parallel careers, including writer, photographer, restauranteur and archaeologist.

 

 

Bill Wyman (Photo by Jordi Renart)

Unless otherwise stated, images courtesy of and © copyright www.rexfeatures.com

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

 

Digger: Why did white young men from London, Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool and so on in the early sixties identify so closely with, and fall in love with, black American R and B?

Bill: I think there's a few reasons. One reason is that they were all ports and there were American sailors and military people in England at the time who would pass on records. I mean, they were so few and far between these blues records. They were like gold dust. They weren't selling in the shops or anything. And people just swapped and borrowed them. People like Long John Baldry would have reel-to-reel tapes copying a Jimmy Reed album. That's the way that I got into the blues, anyway. I think another reason is the emergence of skiffle. Thank God that Chris Barber was around and he brought over American artists - Broonzy and Muddy Waters in the early days. I think Broonzy was in '48 and '52 Muddy. And then he took them around and they were seen by a jazz audience.

Digger: I saw Chris the other day, playing with Bilk and Ball at the O2. Amazing. He plays so eloquently and strongly yet he's rather fragile of body now.

Bill: (Laughs) He does like 200 gigs a year. Extraordinary. So we all started playing skiffle like Lonnie Donegan - Chris had that skiffle section in the middle of his show when I first saw it - then later replaced by Alexis Korner, of course. And we all started being skiffle musicians. We did, The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks. Everybody had skiffle bands and we were playing blues without knowing what it was. We played Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie through Donegan and I think that's the way it happened. We all tried to form bands and it was just the obvious thing to do.

Digger: It's funny that it ended-up being coals to Newcastle.

Bill: Oh absolutely. Young American people weren't listening to it were they? It was for the black people across the river. When I first went to Chicago and the white kids were saying "Where can we hear this music?" and we'd say (Laughs) "Go across the bridge." There was a lot of racism and we brought the music to them.

Digger: Dusty Springfield was a big protagonist of black music and Tamla and she refused to play in South Africa because they wanted her to play to segregated audiences.

Bill: We were invited to go down there and we didn't go for that reason. But even when black American musicians did that Soul To Soul tour in the eighties, they avoided them like the plague. I almost went but had to cancel. But people told me that the big American stars would not mix with the black African people. Stars like Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin - they just didn't mix. They were being a bit racist as well. White people always get accused of racism but it's there with black people too.

Digger: What about Tamla? That was coming through when The Beatles and The Stones were first hitting the scene.

Bill: (Laughs) I thought it was FANTASTIC actually. It wasn't there right at the very beginning, but it soon became a powerful force and we got into that as well. Marvin Gaye and stuff like that, yeah, absolutely. And we loved The Four Tops and were great friends with The Supremes when we first played with them and James Brown on that tour. 

Digger: Labels on music aren't really important are they?

Bill: No, because we were playing their music and helping to get them up there, you know. We were doing Solomon Burke and Otis Redding stuff way before he was known in England. And we LOVED all that stuff. And it took us away from the blues and, I mean, we couldn't stick with the blues all the time. We had to move on and we were doing up-tempo and Chuck Berry numbers. We were always looking for new material to do that wasn't blues-related, because we'd save that for the club and jamming and for the studio. 

Digger: At that time, bands like The Yardbirds and The Manfreds went in a certain pop direction but their roots were in the blues.

Bill: The Yardbirds followed us everywhere - they used to question us just before a gig at places like Richmond Athletic Club (The Crawdaddy) They'd be there asking us how we did this song and who wrote that and where do we get a copy of this? They followed on after us and they took over our clubs when we moved on to the ballroom and so on. The Manfreds were already there when we started but The Yardbirds came much later. 

Digger: Has the last 15 or so years been something of a 'release' for you in the sense that you seem to have been able to exercise more creativity and to express yourself energetically in many different ways? This almost came as a surprise to some people who seemed to expect you to 'retire' quietly.

 

Bill and wife Suzanne Accosta

 

Bill: Totally, yes. When I left the band I just wanted to get away from music, and I did so for two years and I got into other things. I got married, again, and got that sorted out once and for all. (Digger laughs, then Bill) Yes, my private life was a bit of a disaster and I got married again and it's never been nicer. I've got beautiful daughters and have just celebrated our 16th anniversary and it couldn't be better. I got that sorted and then I got back into a number of things that I'd half done before I left The Stones, you know? Another solo album, I opened The Sticky Fingers restaurant and the first book A Stone Alone and various things like that. And after a couple of years I thought "Music is my life and I would like to do it again but I wouldn't like to do it the way I've done it before. Let's do something totally different." So I just got my mate, Terry Taylor, who I've known and worked with since the late 60s on various projects. And we just went into the studio with various people three days a month and just cut eight songs with a little band of whoever was available. Then, a month later, we'd go into the studio for three days again and cut another six songs and we just did anything that came to mind that I thought was good. We did songs from the 20s to the 70s, basically, and a whole variety of stuff. There was a J.J. Cale track, then we'd do a Bessie Smith, then we'd do a Blind Willie McTell and then a John Lee Hooker and then an Otis Redding and Fats Waller. Just a complete mixture - boogie-woogie, Big Joe Turner and it just depended on who I was in the studio with. Whether it was Georgie Fame or Paul Carrick we'd do stuff that suited them and at the end of the year I had 70 tracks. And I thought "What the hell am I going to do with these? (Digger laughs) Completely no direction and it was just everywhere. It took me a year to get a record deal because people said "It's great, fantastic and I've been playing it in the car but there's no way of putting this out." And I went everywhere, you know. It was quite hard to get a deal. But, in the end, we did and it took off and (Laughs) it's been good ever since basically. I know it's probably one of your questions, but people don't realise we did our first gig in 1997 which is 12 years ago, right? Graham Broad was the drummer. He still is. I was bass player. I still am. Terry Taylor was the guitarist. He still is. The horn players were Frank Mead and Nick Payn. They still are. Lead guitar was Albert Lee. He still is. Lead girl vocalist was Beverly Skeete. She still is. Georgie Fame on organ. He still is. There's just been a few changes - when Georgie's not available, I've had to bring in another player like Chris Stainton or Gary Brooker came in and joined us. Martin Taylor, the jazz guitarist when Peter Frampton, who was in the first year with us, had to leave and go on and do his own career. But the band - apart from two people, is the same band that it was 12 years ago. And it has been all through those years. But everybody thinks the band changes all the time.

 

Georgie Fame with Mick Jagger

John Lee Hooker

 

 

Digger: They think it's a bit like Ringo's All-Starrs?

Bill: But it isn't. That's what I don't want. I don't like that because Ringo's All-Starrs don't have an identity. It's just a variety of great musicians. Dr John sometimes, Joe Walsh, all doing their hits. Two or three hits. I don't have a band like that. I have a band that plays Rhythm Kings music and has a Rhythm Kings identity. If Gary Brooker comes on, yeah, he might play A Whiter Shade Of Pale as an encore sometimes because everybody likes to hear it. But Georgie doesn't do Yeah Yeah and all that. I don't do a couple of the hits that I've had. And nobody else does. It's not a matter of how do you get into The Rhythm Kings, (laughs) because The Rhythm Kings have already been got into! It's like a football team, if you like. You get the odd guy who gets injured or a yellow card and so you have to replace him off the bench. So, if Graham Broad is doing a world tour with Roger Waters or something like that then I have to replace him and I get Henry Spinetti. But it's very, very rare and has only happened on a couple of tours. If Albert can't do a couple of gigs I have to find a replacement for Albert. 

Digger: Can you tell us about the enlisting of Gary US Bonds?

Bill: Well, you know, we've had Eddie Floyd for three years and he's marvellous. Knock On Wood and 634-5789. All the songs he wrote for Wilson Pickett. But I just thought the audiences had kind of had enough of Eddie (Laughs) They'd seen him with us for a couple of years so I thought it was time for a change. And Eddie is doing some gigs with us in September and October. But not on the English tour. So I thought "Who in America would I like to bring over who probably hasn't been seen much by our audiences and who I absolutely love?" And I immediately though of Gary US Bonds. 'Cos I was talking to Stevie Van Zandt, Springsteen's guitarist, who's a great mate and he said "Yeah, Bruce loves him and we do yoga together sometimes and he's still doing the business" and I thought "Great, I'll bring him over." So we got in touch (Laughs) and told him there was a limited budget, probably a lot less than he's used to because we're a ten-piece and in the end he said yes. So we'll do half a dozen of his numbers in the set and it should be great. 'Cos I've got the band that can play it for him with the great horns and everything. So we can do A Quarter To Three and New Orleans and School Is Out and School Is In and Twist Twist Senora and all those great songs he did. Great records. The only trouble is, we can't make it sound like it's being done in a barn like he did (Laughs).

Digger: I suppose most of these people instinctively know most of these tracks anyway?

Bill: In my band? Oh yeah. That's why I can't really bring young kids into the band, because you've got to teach 'em and if you've got to get into that then it's a waste of time. When I used to tour with The Stones, right, we'd say "There's going to be a world tour and we'll do America for four months" then we'd rehearse for a month or six weeks, 'learning' songs we'd been playing for 30 years. It always seemed to me to be totally bizarre and over the top. A waste of time and effort. When I work with my band they're bloody brilliant on stage - I don't know if you've ever seen them, but we rehearse in an afternoon and we learn eight new songs and we run through all the other songs we're gonna do on the tour. And if we have a guest like Eddie or Gary then we learn all their songs as well. But we'll do it in two afternoons. Because the band are so together and it's not hard work to learn stuff. We record all our records in a maximum of three takes and usually the first or second take and they're all high quality. It's not like we just bash 'em off. Always in three - if we couldn't get it in three I'd say "Forget it, let's move on to another song." Because you lose the spontaneity, the excitement and the fun of playing that particular song. You can learn all the licks of, say, a Fats Waller song and the way the piano and the drums are done, and I might have to try to imitate a double bass on the bass guitar because most of the stuff is done on double bass. And we adapt slightly. And sometimes I have to work out completely new horn arrangements with Nick Payn, which is exciting for me because I've never had the chance to do that before and I really get off on it. And then you do it and it's slightly modernised but you still retain the magic of the original and you've gotta do it in a couple of takes while everybody's having fun because that's the way the original was done. Do you follow me?

 

  

Muddy Waters

 

Bessie Smith

 

Digger: Hmm, it sounds as though this is a total renaissance for you. Going into this has opened-up all sort of avenues that just weren't available to you when you were with The Stones?

Bill: Yeah, I never had the opportunity. I'd suggest certain things and certain songs and sometimes they'd take them on board. Eddie Cochran's Twenty Flight Rock and 2,000 Light Years on stage - I suggested we did those on tour and those things they did take on board. But when you're working on songs it's kind of hard to go anywhere that Mick and Keith haven't already thought of. So, you just become the bass player and throw in a few ideas and a few licks with Charlie, but there's not a lot you can do.

Digger: Plus they had a huge catalogue of songs and an expectation from the audience to hear them.

Bill: Yup, so it was a revelation to be able to do horn arrangements and to be able to choose the songs and choose who was going to sing them and I really got off on that. And being able to write songs in those styles, which is much easier than when I was writing for solo albums.

Digger: Did you do the arrangements for all the instruments?

Bill: No. (Laughs) I can't tell Albert Lee what to play. I work quite a lot with the backing vocals and obviously with my bass playing in the style of a double bass rather than how I would play in rock or blues or soul even. There's a certain feel with a double bass and you have to get the mood and atmosphere of the original and I had to do a lot of re-learning and thinking about the way I play bass.

Digger: Nice to have a challenge like that in your later years.

Bill: Yeah, you can't just rest on your laurels. You're always learning. Have a word with Eric Clapton - he's the Guv'nor isn't he? But he'll always tell you that he learns something new every week, listening to old blues or working on ideas. We all do if we want to progress, so yes, absolutely, I love that about The Rhythm Kings. If I didn't love those two six-week tours every year, then I wouldn't do it. It's not like a career move.

 

  

Eric Clapton

 

Digger: Or like you have to.

Bill: Have to? I'd rather be at home with my family. I just have so much fun doing it. And they do too. They turn down BIG things with other people. Beverly turned down The Eurythmics bloody tour!

Digger: That's a difficult call sometimes.

Bill: Yeah, because she's going to get paid ten times more with Annie Lennox but she just adores being with The Rhythm Kings and I'm so pleased about that. More than pleased, it shocks me sometimes that people will go to those lengths. Georgie Fame does too. And it's just wonderful that they all have that mood but they all love what we play and the fun we have and no-one's a Prima Donna. And nobody tries to upstage anyone and everybody leaves room for everybody musically to do their thing and compliment them on it afterwards. I was 30 years in The Stones and I don't think there was ever a day when we came off stage and someone said to me "Bill, you played really great tonight." 'Cos they didn't do that. But it does happen in The Rhythm Kings.

Digger: Was that because of egos or because they didn't know your instrument well enough to recognise when you'd played well?

Bill: (Laughs) Egos.

Digger: The Blues Odyssey album was a major project - choosing your favourite songs from the genre. What are your particular favourites and for uninitiated people who want to experience a bit of authentic Blues, which artists and which albums would you recommend (apart from yours?!)

Bill: In the back of the Blues Odyssey book there's six pages of my choice of favourite albums. I've gone right through that so I don't want to get into that again but that's a wonderful thing about the blues, especially in the late 20s and early 30s. Some of those blues artists who we listen to now, who we've only got six tracks of, maybe eight or sometimes only four tracks - that's all there is that's ever been found. These guys were recording people with their little mobile units and they'd come through one year and find a guy like Luke Jordan and recorded six or seven tracks with him and they'd come back the year after to find him again and (Laughs) he was gone and they didn't know where he'd gone to. They never found him! And the same happened with Blind Willie McTell, didn't it? He got lost - he was in Atlanta and they recorded him in the 30s and he was a huge star but he still played on the street corners and then they lost touch and didn't know where he was. Then he was finally discovered again in the early 1940s when he was old and didn't quite play as well but they recorded him again. So there are magical recordings from those days - maybe just a few tracks here and a few tracks there and that's all there is. Robert Johnston had two quick recording sessions and it's a bit sad in a way that there's a lot of stuff that has disappeared and a lot that wasn't recorded. Or, of course, not recorded on a good quality vinyl record so that you can then produce a good version of it with modern technology.

Digger: They talk about 'the blues' and 'rhythm and blues' these days but it's not the same animal, is it?

Bill: No, people say to me. Come to this pub, there's a great blues band. Notting Hill or wherever. So I go up there and the pub's quite crowded and people are having a good time and the band are playing (imitates a basic clichéd blues riff) all night long. And it goes on and they think that's all there is to it. It's a bit sad, really (Laughs) and it's not the blues.

Digger: I saw Paul Jones playing with Digby Fairweather at a gig a few weeks ago and it was a mix of jazz and blues and one or two of The Manfreds' hits. The blues were my favourite bits of the gig and what a great harmonica player he is - phenomenal.

Bill: He's been playing with The Blues Band hasn't he? So he keeps his chops exercised!

Digger: You have a big interest in memorabilia. My girlfriend suspects that blokes are particular collectors and hoarders of stuff. What items have given you most pleasure to collect and what golden nuggets are you still searching for?

Bill: I don't search for stuff. I don't collect in that way. I've collected stuff since the beginning, purely for my own pleasure. Originally I started doing it for my kid, because when I joined The Stones I had an eight-month-old son and I thought "I'd better keep a few things so he knows I was in a band once. And we made a record and were on TV and Radio once or twice." (Digger laughs) I started with a scrap book, and a second and a third, eighth and ninth and fifteenth and then it became too much so it was one trunk. Then it became another trunk and it just kept growing (Laughs) and by the time he grew up he wasn't the slightest bit interested because he'd lived all the way through it. It wasn't a come and go career, which we all thought it would be at the beginning. It just went on and so I continued to collect because nobody else was collecting. I thought it was important to keep a record.

Digger: None of the other guys were?

 

   

Jimmy Page and Charlie Watts

 

 

Bill: No! No bands were. I didn't know one band in the 60s, 70s and into the 80s that had one collection of their old stuff. I gave stuff to Zeppelin and Jimmy Page, I gave stuff to The Beatles because Ringo and Paul didn't have film of their gigs at Shea Stadium and the first Washington show. I had all the week's ads leading up to the show and they didn't have anything so I gave those them. And I think after people started to suss that memorabilia was becoming popular and was starting to be auctioned everybody started collecting it and people like The Who and even The Stones and The Beatles themselves started to make little archives. They bought from auctions but I didn't, I collected as I went along. A ticket here and a poster there and photographs.

Digger: There's also an element that as people get older they start to reminisce and look back.

Bill: But everybody used to take the piss out of me for doing it. They said "What the **** are you collecting all that lot **** for?"  (Both laugh) Don't bother. Now they'll give me their right arm for it. When I was a kiddie growing up in the war I lived with grandmother - I had gone to the country but didn't like it - and in south London all the  bombs and the Doodlebugs were going off. And she taught me everything from the age of four onwards. She taught me my alphabet and my times tables and she read me stories and read me classic like Dickens and Gulliver's Travels and Treasure Island and you name it. She taught me to save a sixpenny savings stamp every week after running errands and put it in a book. She taught me to collect stamps and coins and cigarette cards and so on and so on. And that's where it started.  

Digger: It's great to have a positive influence like that at a young age.

 

 

   

 

 

Bill: Yeah, but it was something to occupy me. I didn't have brothers and sisters living with me. I spent a lot of time with her and it became part of my life and I still do it.

Digger: So, can you tell us about your online memorabilia shop and the thinking behind it?

Bill: Well (Laughs) it's really for people who like to collect things.

Digger: Strangely enough.

Bill: I've got quantities of things that I don't need and I think there might be people out there who want a vinyl copy of something I've got and so we have the shop up there now. We also sell Rhythm Kings CDs and so on. But I don't have masses and masses of stuff up there. Copies of my books. It could be a lot bigger if I wanted it to be - I've probably got several copies of things in my collection when I only really need one. So why not make it available to somebody else?

Digger: What makes you laugh?

Bill: British comedy. I've just been watching Sailor Beware with Peggy Mount. Do you remember? I'll tell you it was just her being the most frightening mother-in-law you could think of and we just sat there and laughed our heads off. I love that early comedy - Max Miller, Robb Wilton and all those people before the more modern people.

Digger: My favourite is Alastair Sim.

 

Harry Secombe and Peggy Mount 

Alastair Sim

 

 

Bill: Oh, I love him too. I love all the character actors as well. Terry-Thomas, I was so sad the way he went. Till Death Us Do Part, Steptoe and Son, Hancock. I had collections of Hancock videos in the 70s way before any of them were released. Charlie Watts and I would watch them. They came through from Robert Stigwood in America and I had forty-odd and I was always a great fan of his. I just find that comedy now is taking the piss out of people and shocking and sarcastic and crude and basic. I don't see much talent - maybe a bit but it's few and far between. We've lost Tommy Cooper, Morecambe and Wise, Benny Hill.

Digger: Frankie Howerd.

Bill: I know, they've all gone haven't they? And they haven't been replaced in my... maybe I'm getting too old. I don't find things funny anymore when I watch so-called comedy. One of my great mates is Ian La Frenais and I've been friends with him for 30 years and he did The Likely Lads, Auf Wiedehesen Pet, Porridge. They were fantastic.

 

Tommy Cooper

Morecambe and Wise

Max Miller

 

Digger: There are some great lines in Porridge that are my favourites. Fletcher is doing the crossword in his prison cell and cellmate Godber comes over and starts 'helping' him. Fletcher ponders and says "Four letters. You find it at the bottom of bird cages'. Ends in 'IT." Godber thinks and then says "Grit" triumphantly. "Oh yeah" says Fletcher. "Have you got a rubber?" (Both laugh) Now that's great because there's nothing rude apart from what's inside your head.

Bill: I know. I don't think there's the writers anymore like Galton and Simpson and Johnny Speight. And even Eric Sykes. I was great friends with Milligan and Sellers and Secombe over the years and had dinner with them and so on but I was really close with Spike and miss him dearly.

 

Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes

Ian La Frenais

 

 

Digger: Spike was very kind to me when I wrote to him in the eighties.

Bill: I know, he used to send me bloody postcards from Australia or call me up at three in the morning. Hello Spike, it's three in the morning. He was hilarious on the 'phone. Stanley Unwin was a great mate of mine too.

Digger: Wow. Stanley was a one-off. They even used a puppet of him and his voice in a Gerry Anderson show - Secret Service.

Bill: I never saw it. Probably when I was in France. He was a sweet man as well. 

Digger: Your photography has turned from something you did on tour to pass the time into something which people are showing a real interest in, with exhibitions all over Europe. Can you tell us if there's going to be a book of the photos?

Bill: Yes, I've been asked to do one. It was supposed to be this year but I've been involved in so many projects and working on other ones. Because I've always got stuff on the back burner and have four or five projects going on or bubbling under. It's kind of hard to fit things in sometimes, but it's something I really want to do soon. It shouldn't be that long because I'm still doing exhibitions in various parts of the world and I'm very pleased. I didn't think of exhibitions when I was taking my photos - I just took 'em to have a visual record of what I was putting in my diaries. 

Digger: Nobody else in The Stones took photos?

Bill: No, just me.

Digger: What DID they do with their spare time if they weren't collecting memorabilia or taking photos?

Bill: Keith? Writing songs I suppose. It was more lucrative than what I was doing, but there you are. I've always had a passion for a whole variety of things and never just focused on one. People like Keith focused on Stones music or Mick on Stones music and movies or Charlie on jazz and Ronnie on art. I have so many things like photography and archaeology and the restaurant and books and God knows what. I just like it like that. And now metal detecting. Just the other day I went over to Bradfield Woods near Gedding, which are from Saxon times, now they’re a nature reserve - I was out there taking photos of wildlife the whole day, then metal detecting tomorrow and the day after I might be doing something different, but that's the way I love life. I like variety and to do things the best I possibly can, not just bash them out.

Digger: So the old wife's tale about Jack of all trades is rubbish, because you can be good at several things.

Bill: Yeah, I think you just have to say "Do I muck about with this or do I do it properly?". Like The Rhythm Kings and my restaurant which is still going after 20 years. The restaurant which is on a  par with The Hard Rock and all of them, winning the best burger in London award. 

Digger: I was staying at Olympia a couple of weeks ago and we popped into your place. It's very good. 

Bill: You get nice helpings and it's not expensive.

Digger: Where did the interest in metal detecting come from?

Bill: Working on the history of my place in Suffolk, which I've done pretty much now. (Laughs) Another book in the making! I now know, because we're in the Domesday book. I know everybody who lived on this site since 1150. I know who they married and how many children they had and what happened to them. Whether they were beheaded at The Tower of London - because they were all Lords, Knights, Sirs and Ladies and all that. I was doing all that and then some workmen came because our water pipes went up the shoot because of frost and so they had to dig a trench to replace the piping. They said "We just found this in the trench over there, by your stables." And it was an eight or nine inch tall brown glazed pot which was from the 1500s. And when I saw it I thought. "Jesus!" The workman said "Do you want it or shall we throw.." (Both laugh) And then I found a little..

Digger: It was totally in one piece?

 

 

Fats Waller

 

Bill: Yeah, and then I sent it to a museum and they dated it to the 1500s and said it was a water jug. But it adds to the history. So I thought "Right, there's gotta be other stuff around." And so I bought a metal detector and started going around and started to find all kinds of stuff and I've been doing it ever since. And it adds to the history of the house and the surrounding fields and villages.

Digger: Have you done The Time Team thing on it, with the 'Geophysics' and so on?

Bill: Yeah they came one time to do a little thing. I wouldn't let them do any of the good things. They were out at the front of the house in the park, that was okay, but I don't like their attitude that much. Kind of know-alls and not open to chatting. It's always such a rush with them.

Digger: They set themselves targets of three days or so.

Bill: I had Tony Robinson here and one of the girls and the rest of it was my people. Sometimes they find something and say "This looks really interesting. This is real archaeology this. I wonder what it is?" And I'm thinking to myself "I know exactly what it is. It's a book clasp from the middle ages." And you go through the whole programme and suddenly they've got this expert on and he says "Yes, it's a book clasp from the 17th century." And I think "Jesus, any metal detectorist would tell you that within ten seconds." They're more interested in buildings and they don't seem to know what the little artifacts are. I find that a bit weird. Since I've been doing it I've found two Roman sites locally, in one of them I found about 300 coins and about 20 brooches and bucketfuls of pottery. I found Saxon stuff, bronze and iron-age items and coins and pottery and of course medieval - gold coins and a lot of silver coins from the middle ages. Silver pennies, groats. And I just find it so interesting and you never know what you're gonna find next. I was out today and I didn't find too much exciting but I did find 23 coins.

Digger: Do you feel any connection with these people because of what you're finding?

Bill: Well, yeah, if I find it in my land I know who it belonged to and I know the history.

Digger: I just wondered if it made you feel like taking up the lute?

Bill: Taking up the what?

Digger: The lute.

Bill: (Laughs) I can see me playing the lute. No, but one time I did some excavation behind the house in my moat -  the house is from 1480 and there was a house here before that but the oldest existing part is pre-Henry VIIIth and 1480. I did a 2-year dig at the back of my house and I found about 30 walls under the ground. Some of them were 3 foot deep and they were the foundations of the manor. This is the gatehouse where I live - there's no manor left anymore. And one day I found a beautiful one inch high by about a quarter inch thick carved bone heart with a little loop on it where it would have a thread for a lady to wear. And it's carved on both sides. I sent it to the museum as I send everything to the archaeologists who I'm great friends with now and they dated it back to the 1500s. They said that's when hearts first became symbolic in carvings. When I thought "This is 1500s, who could it belong to?" And I knew exactly who it belonged to. This lady called Elizabeth, who married one of the Chamberlain family who had been here for 250 and were originally 'Chambrelin'. She was Elizabeth Fitzralph and she came from Cambridge. She married one of the main Chamberlains who was a knight and the parliamentary representative of Suffolk in those days. And it was almost certainly her that it belonged to. You can make those connections when you get dates. I find that fascinating as well.

Digger: When you think of the number of careers you could have had...

Bill: I know, a librarian or an archivist at a museum.

 

    

Stanley Unwin

Long John Baldry

 

Digger: It would be good to see your 'Who Do You Think You Are?" but you'd probably know more than the experts.

Bill: Yeah, I know I can trace my family back to the middle of the 1500s living in the same town as Shakespeare.

Digger: Wow, I was there two weeks ago watching As You Like It in the round for my friend's eightieth birthday.

Bill: Oh, brilliant. I had some help and they found out my ancestor there was christened in the same church as Shakespeare within a few weeks of him so they were both born about the same time. They said it was quite likely they were drinking buddies, you know. Before Shakespeare took off, because he was a bit of a lad when he was younger.

Digger: A rock and roller of his day.

Bill: I was surprised because I always thought my family came form the east end of London as far as I could go back to which was the 1800s. That's where they all came from - Sydenham, Catford and Lewisham and that area. I was surprised they came from Shakespeare country.

Digger: You don't think people were on the move so much in those days but they were.

 

With Ringo

 

 

Bill: They had to move where the work was.

Digger: What makes you sad?

Bill: The state of England and the way this country is becoming less and less English. It's the  bloody government that do it. When I drive through Wandsworth and I see a street that's named after one of the middle Arabic countries. And I think "Do they have a street in that country called Wandsworth street?" No, of course not and I can never understand that. And why we change rules to accommodate people who have moved here. People like Pakistanis or Arabs - not being racist but why do we have to change our laws? Wherever you go in the world you have to live the way of the host country. In England we're just becoming softer and softer and that's what really disappoints me. 

Digger: Are there any myths about you that you'd like to dispel?

Bill: Yeah, in the early 80s I was always referred to as crumbly, crotchety, wrinkly. I'm not joking. I'm the least wrinkled person at my age that you've ever seen. And it really disappoints me. "Crumbly, wrinkly ex-Stone Wyman" you know. I mean it's just not on. And they do it to other people as well, I'm not the only one.

Digger: What is the legacy of the sixties? What would you like people to remember you for?

Bill: Being part of a great rhythm section with Charlie Watts who inspired a lot of other musicians, hopefully. Well, it has, because a lot of people come up to me over the years and told me Charlie and I inspired them to become good players with the way we played. That, I think, is a good legacy.

Digger: With the restaurant, are you planning to roll it out elsewhere?

Bill: No, I've gone through all those offers to do that in many countries and I've always said no because I didn't want to travel around the world looking at my restaurants. That's what you have to do and I'm quite happy just to have it in London.
  
Digger: Finally, what can we expect from Bill Wyman in the future?

Bill: (Laughs) You name it, I'll have it! 

Digger: It's been really good talking to you, Bill. I know your dinner's just arrived, as has my takeaway curry which I can see arriving out the window. What have you got?

Bill: I like to be surprised. It won't be a curry though.

Digger: Why?

Bill: 'Cos I'm living in the middle of nowhere in Suffolk! 

Digger: Take care and thanks for your time.

Bill: Thank you, you too David. Bye.

 

 

Some early shots of Bill with The Rolling Stones 
Images courtesy of and © copyright Strato Archive