Bill Wyman, founder member of 'The Rolling Stones' is 75 years old today.
What you possibly didn't know about Bill, that he :
* was born William George Perks, like me and Jude Law, in Lewisham, South London and he was the son of a bricklayer, one of five children who spent most of his early life living in a terraced house in a tough area and described his childhood as 'scarred by poverty'.
* went to grammar school from 1947 to 1953, took piano lessons from age 10 to 13, then left school before taking his exams, after his father insisted that he took a job working for a bookmaker.
* got married in 1959, a year later bought a Burns electric guitar but after hearing a bass guitar at The Barron Knights' concert, fell in love with its sound and decided this was his instrument and created what may have been the first fretless electric bass and played this in a South London band, 'The Cliftons'.
* auditioned when a 'rhythm and blues' band called 'The Rolling Stones' needed a bass player and was hired because they were impressed by his instrument and amplifiers.
On joining the band :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPrzf8hmMOY
'Satisfaction' and Bill's bass guitar work :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_VbImuG71M
* because he was married and older, remained an outsider in the band and left in 1992to branch out on his own.
Bill Whyman's Rythm Kings Green River
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i3Ud84zAvw
P.S.
* has kept a journal since he was a child after the Second World War which has been useful to him the author of 7 books which have sold 2 million copies and his photographs have been hung in galleries around the world.
* is an amateur archaeologist, has designed and markets a patented 'Bill Wyman signature metal detector', owns the famous Sticky Fingers Café, a rock & roll-themed bistro serving American cuisine first opened in 1989 in Kensington, London.
But you weren't born William George Perks!?
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