Bill Wyman - Back to Basics

**

Basic but not much Satisfaction  

Bill Wyman is probably best known for being the former bass player with The Rolling Stones but that is a role he actually left over twenty years ago now back in 1993. Since then he has been involved with Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings. The new album ‘Back to Basics’ is only his fourth solo album, the last of which was a massive thirty three years ago while he was still with the Stones. This is a collection of older unreleased material that he decided needed a new lease of life before they got a wider release. You do sometimes wonder if an artist has not release a piece of music before, then their must be a reason for it. In someways old material is best left on the shelf, but I can understand will a popular artist, their are people wanting to hear everything they have done.

Now it is fair to say that when you are worth a reputed $80 million you are pretty free to make the album the way you want it without worrying about the commercial success side too much. This is what the album comes across as to me, something he had deep inside him that he felt needed to see the light of day. I am not sure if I am being unkind but it almost seems a bit of a vanity project, I am sure to a few saying that about an ex-Stone would be sacrilege, but the album just never really gets going. This is a record that he needed to push a little in production, and bring new life to it... but he simply has not done that and I am a fan of the input he put into The Rolling Stones.

It is a Blues album at its core, but problem with a lot of Blues albums is if you don't try and reinvent the box a little they fall flat. From the off ‘What & How & if & When & Why’ has an 80’s sound but not necessarily in a good or Retro way but has a bit of a dated feel about it, vocally it reminds me of Ian Dury, it really does have a Blockheads feel about it, but without the creativity that team offered. This Blues feel is repeated in ‘Love, Love, Love’ and ‘Stuff (Can’t Get Enough)' a song that seems to be about money. Well money does make the World go round, and in today's culture people really do need to talk about it. In fact that sound is repeated pretty much through all of the fourteen tracks, by track nine ‘November’ is starting to feel like it might have reached November even though I started listening in early June. 

By the final bonus track ‘Exciting’, a song that it's title feels a bit ironic. Their is not much exciting going on here, but again I sure plenty would disagree but it had a sound of a talented pub singer act rather than a multi-million selling act. It feels muted and just missing the hook to really draw you into it as a piece of work, Perhaps I am right and this is just an album of songs he wanted to release, from a person that has nothing to prove musically as he has done it all. Perhaps that is no bad thing either it may not be my cup of tea but too often acts are steered by the market and not their own creative wishes. When you are in a position to be able to do what you want maybe you should be free to take it, and release what you want and 'Back to Basics' seems like he has done that. Taking his whole music career back to the start and 'Back to Basics'.

Review by Jon Cooper

Check Out! the Video for ' ‘What & How & if & When & Why’ Below...