Bill Wyman at 90: The Rolling Stones bassist who made his own bass, then chose to walk away

Bill Wyman is being celebrated on his 90th birthday, a milestone that shines a light on one of the least flashy but most durable figures in Rolling Stones history. Long before he spent three decades anchoring the band's songs, he was a London kid shaped by wartime, military service and a practical switch to an instrument nobody else wanted to play.

Born William George Perks on October 24, 1936, in Lewisham, London, Wyman went on to become the bassist for the Rolling Stones from 1962 until 1993. He later made Bill Wyman his legal name in 1964. Across his years in the band, he played on the music that helped carry the Stones to worldwide stature, including 11 number-one hits.

That alone would be enough to secure his place in rock history, but Wyman's story is more unusual than the standard image of a 1960s rock star. He joined the Stones at 25 as the oldest member, and he was never especially drawn to the kind of excess that became part of the band's legend. Even after leaving, he did not disappear into the oldies circuit. He kept recording on his own and with the Rhythm Kings, and in August 2024 he released his ninth solo album, Drive My Car.

The grandmother who opened the door to music

Wyman grew up as one of six children born to a bricklayer and his wife in wartime London, where air-raid sirens were a regular part of childhood. He also described his father as a stern military man, and said physical affection was not common at home. Even so, he has said his upbringing was a happy one.

A major reason was his grandmother, Florence French. She gave him piano lessons and brought him into the local church choir, experiences Wyman later credited as the foundation of everything he would do in music. For a player so closely linked to bass, his start was much more traditional.

His route into adult life did not initially point toward a band at all. He left school before taking his final exams because his father had arranged a bookkeeping job and insisted he accept it. Then, in January 1955, he was called up for two years of national service in the Royal Air Force. After signing on for an additional year, he was posted to Oldenburg Air Force Base in West Germany. There, radio broadcasts from the American Armed Forces Network introduced him to rock and roll.

An accidental bassist joins a future giant

Wyman bought a guitar in 1956. In 1957, he formed a skiffle group with Casey Jones, who later led Casey Jones and the Engineers, a band that briefly included Eric Clapton.

After military service, Wyman returned to London and joined a group called the Cliftons. That is also where the instrument most people associate with him entered the picture. The band had three guitarists and no bassist, so he switched for practical reasons. He did not even own a bass at the time and had to make one.

He left the Cliftons in mid-1962 and replaced Dick Taylor in an R&B band called the Rolling Stones. The fit lasted 31 years. Wyman was not known as the most demonstrative member of the group, and he later contrasted himself and drummer Charlie Watts with the band's wilder reputation, saying they stayed clean and behaved because they had responsibilities. Quiet or not, his steady role became part of the sound of one of rock's defining bands.

Solo records, side projects and the exit that stuck

Wyman was also the first member of the Rolling Stones to release a solo album. Monkey Grip arrived in 1974, reached number 39 on the UK charts and also made the U.S. Billboard 200. He followed it with Stone Alone in 1976. In 1981, he scored a top 20 solo single with (Si Si) Je Suis un Rock Star, a dance track he had originally written for Ian Drury.

He kept pursuing side projects while still in the Stones. One of them was Willie and the Poor Boys, a short-lived cover band that also included Charlie Watts and Jimmy Page.

In January 1993, Wyman ended long-running speculation by announcing that he was leaving the Rolling Stones. His departure came while the band was dealing with financial problems and a bitter feud between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Looking back in 2024, Wyman said he felt he should have left in the 1980s. He said that after seven years of inactivity, he stayed on for the three legs of the Steel Wheels and Urban Jungle tour in 1989 and 1990, but still wound up with a bank overdraft of £200,000 because the band was not earning anything.

He formed the Rhythm Kings in 1997 with Peter Frampton and Albert Lee, and he has reunited with the Stones from time to time. One recent example was Live By the Sword on the band's 2023 album Hackney Diamonds. So the curiosity around Wyman at 90 is not only that he spent 31 years inside one of the world's most famous groups. It is that he kept building a second act after deciding to leave it.