It’s clear now, decades later, that Bill Wyman didn’t leave the Rolling Stones because he felt boxed out by the Jagger-Richards songwriting juggernaut. When Back to Basics arrived on June 22, 2015, the Stones had put out several full-length albums and a smattering of stand-alone things since his departure, while Wyman has previously issued exactly none.
Bill Wyman was joined by Robbie McIntosh (Pretenders, Paul McCartney), Guy Fletcher (Mark Knopfler) and long-time collaborator Terry Taylor on this first new solo project in 33 years, which was produced by Andy Wright (Jeff Beck, the Eurythmics). To be fair, however, he has been active with Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings, and that loose amalgam’s low-key, country-blues approach to music making permeates Back to Basics.
This was more JJ Cale than it was “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” and therein probably lies the creative divide between Bill Wyman and his old bandmates.
Bill Wyman just sounds more at home employing an oaken vocal on “November,” to the accompaniment of a delicate Spanish guitar. Then there’s the aw-shucks shuffle of “I Got Time” – an shambling harp-flecked song that made good on that promise. Those amiable asides were goosed along on Back to Basics with Wyman’s flinty scamper through the Blockheads-ish “What & How & If & When & Why” and a rousing, Ray Charlies-inspired update of “I’ll Pull You Through.”
Still, the overarching theme here – as it has been, really, since his similarly amiable 1974 solo debut Monkey Grip – was one of relaxed craftsmanship, as unpretentious and small-scale as his long-lost friends in the Rolling Stones are outsized and cocksure.
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