Shall we do a mic test, Bill?
Well, I'll just talk about that loud, don't I?
Not much louder.
It looks like it's got quite a good level there.
Bouncin' about.
Yep.
Here we go.
Play simple.
You're leavin' space and holes for people to fill in.
Not to get in the way. Not to be really noticed.
'Cause if you did the right thing
you don't get noticed.
And that's the way I play. Very simple.
I am Charlie Watts. I am the drummer.
I'm Brian Jones, the guitarist and harmonica player.
Keith Richards, guitar.
Mick Jagger, s.. I sing...songs.
Bill Wyman. I play bass...guitar.
♪ I see a red door ♪
♪ And I want it painted black ♪
♪ No colors anymore ♪
♪ I want them to turn black ♪
♪ I see the girls walk by ♪
♪ Dressed in their summer clothes ♪
♪ I have to turn my head ♪
♪ Until my darkness goes ♪
♪ I see a line of cars ♪
♪ And they're all painted black ♪
♪ With flowers and my love ♪
♪ Both never to come back ♪
♪ I see people turn their heads ♪
♪ And quickly look away ♪
♪ Like a newborn baby ♪
♪ It just happens every day ♪
♪ I look inside myself ♪
♪ And see my heart is black ♪
♪ I see my red door ♪
♪ I must have it painted black ♪
♪ Maybe then I'll fade away ♪
♪ And not have to face the facts ♪
♪ It's not easy facin' up ♪
♪ When your whole world is black ♪
♪ No more will my green sea ♪
♪ Go turn a deeper blue ♪
♪ I could not foresee this thing ♪
♪ Happening to you ♪
You've always been the silent Stone.
That's been the-- the image.
The great Stone Face, I know.
♪ My love will laugh with me ♪
♪ Before the mornin' comes ♪♪
People always ask me why I collected things
and why I built an archive like I did and still do.
This is my little capsule of my life in here.
I suppose if you looked at my bookshelves
you would sort of understand me better.
I always thought it was important to keep a record
of what was going on.
I've -- I've always kept records
or information of things
since I was a-- a little boy in the war.
I remember standing out in the streets
with all the local families
and watching the formations of German bombers going over.
It was just droning.
Just this sound.
There was a German fighter bomber
roaring up the street towards us firing his guns.
As it passed, I ran down the street
to where my grandmother was waiting for me.
She grabbed me and we ran to go down
the back of the stairs to the air raid shelter.
And then the silence.
You go back to the school, and there were two little girls
who was in our class, they weren't there anymore.
They got killed.
We go to that bomb site
where there used to be about 16 houses
and find toys and children's books
and then we'd get chased off by the air raid men.
My grandmother was like my mother.
I mean, she taught me everything.
She was wonderful.
She started me collectin' things.
All kinds of treasured little things.
I was collectin' stuff and I made a scrapbook.
And then I had to make another scrapbook
and another scrapbook.
Then I have to get a trunk.
And it just kept goin' on and on.
Whenever I came into contact with anything
that I could claim was mine, I kept it.
Throw it in the room here. Throw it in the room.
I always wanted to be a musician.
I always wanted to be in a band.
And I know it was so impossible and so unlikely
um, that I would be that I just dismissed it
completely from my mind.
And, um, suddenly last year..
...I -- I re -- remembered, you know, after all that time.
I suddenly remembered that I'd always wanted to be
and now I was, you know.
It didn't mean a thing to me anymore.
It was a big, it was such a big ambition.
It was-- it was unobtainable when I was little.
I was coming from one of the worst streets in Penge.
It was like gang warfare in those days.
Most of the boys in Blenheim Road
ended up in borstals or prisons
and a lot of them went bad.
I was really quite ahead of everybody
because of what my gran was teaching me.
She did whatever she could to bring me up.
My mom and my dad were not that kind of people.
There was a emptiness, a blankness in 'em.
All that working-class stuff
that children should be seen and not heard.
You felt pushed aside all the time.
I never really felt like I had a home, you know.
I really didn't.
I went to a grammar school, which was something special
you know, in those days, um, coming from a slum street.
I was accused of trying to be snobby
by my mates in the street and also by my dad.
He always tried to insist that I was working class
and I should never try to change
because that's what I was.
My dad pulled me out of school
and the headmaster wrote a letter to him.
I've got it. I've got the letter.
And not only did he pull me out of school
he did the worst thing possible.
Put me to work in a bettin' shop.
He said, "You're gonna contribute to payin' for the house."
Because he was a bricklayer, and if he had bad weather in the winter
he couldn't work.
I returned to live with my grandmother a number of times
because I just couldn't get on with my dad at all.
I realized I was on me own.
Once my grandmother died
being loved kind of vanished, really.
She died when I was away and I just never..
...paid her back, really
for all the love and affection she gave me
and I feel guilty about it.
When I was born, she picked me up in-- in her arms
and said, "This boy's gonna be world-famous."
And everybody laughed
including my mom, my dad, my relatives.
They all thought it was like a big joke.
Yeah.
♪ I wanna tell you how it's gonna be ♪
♪ You're gonna give your love to me ♪♪
Give it up for the Rolling Stones.
♪ It sounds so sweet ♪
The audience just stood and sort of stared at us
because we didn't have no uniforms
we didn't have any matching guitars
and we played this blues and R&B
which was alien to them.
And then this crowd goes fucking apeshit.
♪ Going round and round ♪
♪ Yeah reelin' and a rockin' ♪
♪ What a crazy sound ♪
♪ And they never stopped rockin' ♪
♪ Till the moon went down ♪♪
We were just so different from any other band.
We played different music to them.
We played in a different way. We played it better than them.
Keith had all the licks off.
And then you got Mick up front
who's just all over the bloody stage
with the maracas and the tambourine and all that.
The greatest front man there's ever been.
It was a special band
and we could blow anyone off the stage
no matter who it was.
Bill had a very individual style
that wasn't particularly hip or cool
but he was his own person.
He had a tremendous presence
but he didn't impose himself on you.
Stone Face, I think people called him
or referred to him as Stone Face.
He was rake thin
and when he smiled, which wasn't that frequently
his whole face lit up
in a sort of great crease of a smile.
And he always had an air of world-weariness.
I remember seeing Bill when we first rehearsed
up the road in a pub.
You know, he'd had a different sort of upbringing.
He's locked into an era that was before us, really.
So when we got on the road
I think it was like liberation for him.
I went into the military in '55.
Thank God I got the strength when I was in the military
to be able to stand up for myself
and fight for my beliefs.
Before that, I couldn't.
I was posted to Germany.
When I got there, I met this great guy
who was a genius footballer.
His name was Gordon Lee Wyman.
He was bit of a rebel.
All his clothes were scruffy.
And I kind of really liked him for that
because we all had to dress tidy and neat
otherwise we got a bollocking.
But he seemed to get away with it.
He used to be in the refuelin' trucks
and he'd open the top when it was being refueled.
He'd be smokin' a cigarette
and he'd just throw the cigarette in the fuel.
He did insane things.
When he finished his fag, he just dropped it in there.
He was like the first person I kind of idolized
if you like.
He did things his way, and I related to all that.
At the beginning of the Stones, I decided to change my name
because I'd never liked my name.
I officially changed my name in '64 to Bill Wyman.
I felt such a relief havin' a different name
and it just took a cloud off my head.
My dad hated me for it.
He thought I was trying to get away from my roots
which I kind of was in a way.
I mean, it just changed my life.
I bought a fleck jacket just to be different, really.
I'd have a Tony Curtis haircut
hanging down the center there, you know, a curly bit.
People used to stare at me in the street
and I was proud of that.
I was being an odd one out.
At the barracks, the guys in our room all clubbed together.
We bought a radio in town, in Oldenburg, for our room
and at last we were able to listen to whatever we wanted
mostly through American Forces Radio, AFN.
We'd wake up at 5:30 in the morning
and listen to "Stickbuddy Jamboree"
this fantastic country program.
A very big, big, happy howdy to you out there, friends and neighbors.
This is your old country buddy Wagon Wheel Willie
comin' at you on "Stickbuddy Jamboree."
Sit back and relax and enjoy 25 minutes
of good country and western recorded music.
Then, of course, shortly after that
we heard the beginnings of rock and roll.
♪ Train I ride ♪
I could go to the American PSI shops
and buy the first little 45 records.
♪ Train I ride ♪♪
It was just like brand-new music.
It just blew me away.
And I had to be involved in it.
I had to.
I went straight down into the Oldenburg town
and I bought my first acoustic guitar.
When I came out of the military on leave
I went to the cinema, the, uh, Regal Cinema
in Beckenham with a couple of friends
and we saw this film called "Rock, Rock, Rock!"
About halfway through, I saw this trio
called Johnny Burnette Trio who did this..
♪ Lonesome train ♪
...on a lonesome track.
♪ Tum tum lonesome train ♪
A bit like early Elvis.
♪ I'm coming back ♪♪
With all this, you know
his mouth a bit twisted
like Elvis and all that.
I thought, "Oh, they're great," you know.
About ten minutes further into the film
there's this black guy with a little mustache
in a white suit
with a little Gibson Les Paul guitar.
♪ Do do do la da da do do da la da da da ♪♪
Chuck Berry.
And that just blew my mind.
My hair went on the back of my neck.
I thought, "Fuckin' hell." It just blew me away.
This guy was doin' the duck walk across the stage
and shakin' his legs and shudderin'.
And the audience are laughing.
They thought it was a comedy show or something.
And I'm sitting there thinking
"This is the most incredible thing
that's ever happened to me."
It was then that I thought
"Well, I've got to form a band."
♪ Get too close you know I'm gone ♪
♪ Like a cool breeze ♪
I'm out of the military
and that's when the Cliftons came into existence.
♪ Wee wee hours ♪
We used to sit in my kitchen with a little tape recorder
and just learn all these basic songs.
♪ Here come a flat-top he was moving up with me ♪♪
We used to play all the hits of the day.
Um, for that, we used to get a pound each
and a sandwich and a beer.
How long did it take you to learn to play?
It was about --
Now give him a chance, please.
You can ask these questions, everybody sends
somebody else up. No one wants to say anything.
I just messed about with a guitar at home.
About three years ago. Three and a half years ago.
And eventually formed a group
and I had to play bass 'cause nobody else did, did they?
- And then I -- - Why do you play bass?
Nobody else did.
Yeah, because there's more guitarists
and less bass players.
I went to my sister's house for the weekend
and we went to a dance.
And I heard the bass.
I heard the real bass guitar for the first time.
The low sound just filled you up right down there, you know
when everybody else was playing up high.
And I thought, "God, that's what's missing
in the Cliftons."
And I asked them all. I said, "Steve, you wanna play bass?"
"No." "Cliff, do you wanna play bass?" "No."
Fucking hell, I suppose I better do it then.
He didn't have a bass guitar
because he couldn't afford to buy one.
What he did was detune two or three of the top strings
of an ordinary six-string and he made..
What he made of it was brilliant, you know.
And I think we may have all clubbed together
to buy the bass guitar.
We bought it and it was the most ugly, horrible thing.
I turned this bass over, got some chalk
and redrew the body.
And I went down the road to my friend
who had a fret work machine.
I said, "I want you to cut all this out."
He went, "Are you serious?"
I said "Yes, cut it out."
Took it home, put all new electrics in it.
I put another pickup in, a Baldwin pickup.
Stripped it all down, took all the frets out.
Then I had to buy new strings, these framer strings
which were really springy and soft.
And I bought this amplifier.
The fucking thing, every time I touched it
I'd get electrocuted
because it didn't have an earth or anything.
I'd just go, "Ah!"
I bought an 18-inch Goodman speaker
the biggest speaker there was.
And when I played this bass, Jesus, the sound.
I mean, it was amazing.
Without knowing it, I invented the fretless bass.
I heard "Green Onions" by Booker T & the MG's.
♪ Boom doom pa doom doom ♪
♪ Doom doom pa doom pa doom doom ♪♪
And I thought, "That bass is great."
And I started to focus
on trying to play bass like Duck Dunn.
That's who I learned my basics from.
The way to play, to leave space
don't be busy, don't fill it up.
You're not a fucking lead guitarist
you're a bass player.
Focus on what the drummer's doin'
and play exactly with the drums
so that you've got a strong foundation there
that's solid, that everybody else can build upon.
♪ Can you handle it? Handle it ♪
♪ Can you handle it ♪♪
I'd done gigs with some of the lesser-known
musicians of the time.
I did have a bit of experience like that
but it was all rock and roll.
The stuff that we were all listening to
they weren't many bass players on any of those records.
And I remember seeing Bill playing and thinking
"What, a bass player?" And he looked like a Teddy Boy.
I thought, "Where's he come from?"
You know, his bass playing was fantastic.
Really unique.
Forming the Cliftons was a breath of fresh air.
I'd fallen in love with playing music.
We were doing all these gigs and working hard
but the trouble was those shite promoters.
They owed us so much money, they just wouldn't pay us.
And so the bottom started to fall out of the band.
Tony Chapman answered an ad
for a drummer with an R&B band.
That night we went back to Mick's parents' house
and they played Jimmy Reid and various things
that I'd never heard.
I think they quite liked the way I played
because I could play the shuffle beat
which most people couldn't.
And then that's how I got to play with the Stones, really.
Tony came to me and said, "Bass player's left.
Do you wanna come up to rehearsal on Friday?"
So I went up with him and I had my big bass cabinet
in the boot of his car stickin' out.
I took my homemade bass
and I went to the Weatherby Arms in Chelsea.
I went in, and there they were, Ian Stewart.
He was nice when I went in there.
Mick was fairly sociable.
And Brian and Keith just didn't speak to me.
They were up at the bar, and they were really beatnik-y.
I bought them all a round of drinks
and then they got a bit more friendly
and -- and passed the cigarettes round.
So, then they were sociable, you know.
They didn't have any money or anything.
They asked me what music I liked
and what music I played.
So I said, "Well, Chuck Berry," and they went, "Great."
"Jerry Lee Lewis." "No!"
"Eddie Cochrane." "No!"
All the rock and rollers, they didn't like any of them.
They said, "We're a blues band, we're not a rock and roll band.
We don't play that shit."
They'd already spoken to Charlie Watts
so they fired Tony, and Charlie said he'd join.
I kind of slotted in alright.
♪ I said yeah ♪
♪ Yeah yeah yeah Mona ♪
♪ Oh Mona ♪
♪ I tell ya Mona what I wanna do ♪♪
I was a bit of a rock and roller
more than anything else
and found that they were playing pure blues.
♪ Man ♪
I mean, really slow, slow blues.
♪ You know I didn't enjoy things that kings and queens ♪♪
You couldn't buy a bloody blues record
to save your life in those days.
It was unheard of in England.
I remember saying to them at that rehearsal
I said, "We can't play 12-bar blues all fucking night."
Which I was totally wrong about
because we ended up doing exactly that.
Within two months, we were brilliant
and sounded fantastic.
And in 1963, we played about 340 shows.
We traveled everywhere in Stu's van.
He was a fantastic blues piano player
and he looked after us on the road for 22 years.
He was like the sixth Stone, really.
Stu would turn around and say
"Okay, you three-chord wonders, you're on."
♪ Let's go fishin' in the crawdad hole ♪
♪ One two three four five and nine ♪
I couldn't survive working
because we started to get gigs out of London.
♪ I said hey crawdaddy ♪
♪ Hey crawdaddy ♪♪
I told my parents and friends
that I was gonna give up work and go professional.
Every single person I knew said
"Don't do it. Don't take the risk."
And I thought, "Fuck it, I'm gonna do it."
Top British rhythm and blues group
and the best new group, the Rolling Stones.
I didn't think of it
as progressin' anywhere really big.
It was the most excitin' thing in my life.
The sound we had, no one compared
with that sound in those days, no one.
I started to collect the little bits and pieces
as we traveled.
If I was very lucky, I grabbed a little poster
and someone would give me a photo they had taken.
And it just slowly escalated into this mountain.
You know, it is all a bit of a haze to me.
I mean, if I wanna know what I did for certain in those years
I have to ask Bill Wyman, you know.
- Who keeps the archives. - Yeah.
Bill was the first guy to have a computer.
He'd have his videos and they'd be all stacked up.
I bet he's probably got them even now.
He had movie cameras before everybody.
I took reels of film.
Twenty years of home movies on the road.
The biggest ambition we had was to play in a club
and have people like what we were playin'.
We never dreamed about making a record.
It never crossed our minds that we would ever
be on TV or radio.
Pie in the sky to think we might go abroad sometime
because we were playin' uncommercial music.
We were playin' pure blues
and the only place we could play it was in jazz clubs.
Suddenly, we got a followin' and it blossomed from there.
Glyn Johns, who was in that band, The Presidents
said to us, "I work at IBC Record Studios.
I can get you three hours recording time."
We went, "What? Make a record?"
I'd seen the Rolling Stones
and I thought they were really good
and I thought, "There's definitely
a commercial opportunity here."
So I approached the studio owners and said
"Can I bring these people in and see what we can do?"
And they said, "Yes, on the condition that you have
"absolutely nothing to do with getting the deal.
We'll do the business."
I took the Stones in
and that was their first recording session.
We cut four things, I think. Bill and I argue about this.
I thought it was only three, but he says it was five.
He's probably right
because he's got it all written down somewhere.
We went and we cut five tracks.
The guy who owned the place, Harold Clewson
took them around to Decca and EMI and Pi
and nobody liked them.
And we thought that was the end of our recording careers.
It started to happen when Andrew Oldham signed us.
I'm proud of most things I did.
Just, whether the proudness remains
is whether they happen or they don't happen.
Um, the biggest thing naturally is the Rolling Stones.
Andrew said he saw the sex emanatin' from us
and, you know, and all this sort of bullshit
the way Andrew talks, which was fantastic
'cause he was a genius.
Bill, I didn't pay much attention to
and he knows that.
Because of being deeply superficial
I judged books by their cover
and he seemed to be much more of a Duane Eddy
Johnny and the Hurricanes type of guy to me
than a, than a Bo Diddley guy.
Bill might have had moments where he thought
not that his life was over, but his life was set.
And then along came the Rolling Stones.
The phone rings and it's Andrew Oldham saying
"Can I speak to Terry O'Neill?" So I speak to him.
He said, "Can you do what you did
for the Beatles for the Stones?"
I said, "Well, I'll give it a try."
And that's when I first met Bill.
I took the pictures back, and the picture editor said
"God, they look like five prehistoric monsters."
It was a mania with the Beatles
whereas with the Stones, it was an appreciation.
It became a cult.
Alright then, this is the Rolling Stones interview
for the fan club, December, Christmastime.
Mick, Bill and Charlie.
When did you first get mobbed? Do you remember that word?
- Yeah. - Well, that's a good question.
I don't remember, you know.
It was like something, I remember --
- I do. - Oh, well, Bill, okay, go on.
He remembers everything. I'm trying --
We, the first time we got mobbed..
- Go on, where was it? - This doesn't happen anymore.
It was about a third of the way
through the Everly Brothers tour.
- Really? - Up in the north.
It was either in Manchester or Liverpool
one of those places.
Um, where we were actually attacked for the first time
when we tried to get out of the theater.
Okay, here we go.
And now I'd like to introduce to you
the fabulous Rolling Stones.
We'd go on stage and go jan-ta-jan
and the whole crowd would pour on stage
and that was the end of the show.
Two chords, end of the show.
And if we got through three songs, it was, like, amazing.
Sometimes they put police dogs on each end of the stage
to stop the kids getting on. The police dogs went nuts.
The only way you could get out of the theater in time
when you played the last chord of the last song
the curtains closed and they had to play
"God Save The Queen."
And the audience had to stand there for those two minutes.
And that was the two minutes we had to get off the stage
down the corridors, out of the building
into the police van or whatever it was
the Black Mariah or the ambulance
or the newspaper van we were using
to be inconspicuous.
And gone.
Sometimes we didn't get out in time
and then we just got mashed.
And then we went abroad, fucking hell.
Please fasten your seatbelts and do not smoke.
♪ Everywhere I hear the sound ♪
♪ Of marching charging feet boy ♪
♪ 'Cause summer's here and the time is right ♪
♪ For fighting in the street boy ♪
♪ Well now what can a poor boy do ♪
♪ Except to sing for a rock and roll band? ♪
♪ 'Cause in sleepy London town ♪
♪ There's just no place for a street fighting man ♪♪
You talk about being worn out
but you've never been as worn out
as we were the other week.
On Wednesday, the 15th
we left Munich and flew to West Berlin
and that's where the story really starts.
We arrived at the airport.
They said we'll hold a press conference.
We got in, started the press conference.
We were there five minutes, and the kids
are breaking the doors down and everything
and the police kept bringing reinforcements in
to hold the doors and everything at each end.
The chief of police came over and he said
"We can't hold 'em any longer. You'll have to go."
So we had to run out and fight our way through to the bus
and then the bus had to fight its way through the crowd.
And away we went with an escort of about six police cars
and about twenty helmeted and armed police on motorbikes.
Unbelievable, you know.
I never had my movie camera with me.
I'm so annoyed that I missed it, you know.
♪ Well if you ever plan ♪
We were over the moon to hear
that we were gonna go to America.
♪ Just take my way ♪
♪ That's the highway that's the best ♪
♪ Get your kicks on Route 66 ♪
The Beatles, they made it in America.
The Rolling Stones were made by America.
One started to be able to watch with all of them
some magical development
as they were able to record
with their feet touching the land
that created their passion.
You had to break every town and every state.
You were right in the middle of it.
♪ Oklahoma City looks oh so pretty ♪
♪ You'll see Amarillo ♪♪
Let's run one down.
Rolling master A. Master A, take one.
Going to Chess was like a pilgrimage.
We knew that that's where most of our idols recorded.
Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf.
We hoped we could get the right sound
that we weren't being able to get in the UK.
And we did.
We played their blues music brilliantly
and that's what shocked them.
- What's your ambition now? - To be a musician.
I'm not -- I'm not a musician. I just play in a band, you know.
♪ Well I'm a king bee ♪
♪ Buzzing around ♪
There was something about
Bill's bass lines in the Stones.
It was the first thing you'd hear
the thing that was most hooky about it.
It was so precise and so contained, you know.
It wasn't gettin' away with itself.
It was just right.
The best informed are the best players
and I think Bill's one of those.
It's never been pop.
It's been rock and roll
but it's been informed by blues
which is the magical combination.
Bill is like no other bass player I've ever heard.
He has an incredibly simplistic approach to what he's doing.
And I think that's just Bill's complete lack of ego
as a musician, really.
It's very often not what you play
but what you don't play, what you leave out
that makes a distinction as to your abilities, really.
♪ We can make honey ♪
♪ The world has never seen ♪
There were a lot of these really technically brilliant
bass players that can play me off the stage any time.
To me, they just sound like lead guitar players.
So busy that there doesn't seem much room for anybody else.
♪ Sting-a-been ♪♪
The key for me is Bill and Charlie together.
When they play together, it's extraordinary.
The power of the two of them is greater than the four.
Just that magic chemical combination of feel.
♪ I just wanna make love to you ♪♪
Really easy guy. And a really good bass player.
Very, very unassuming bass player.
And some of the records that we made
he's quite brilliant on.
Fortunately, the pair of us
made a living out of doing it together.
We were always referred to as the straightest
rhythm section in rock and roll.
Bill, how did this, uh, come about?
This, uh, with writing miserable articles
about the Stones? Did this originate in Europe?
It started when we started in England, you know
but, um, by now in England
everybody knows what we really are like
so they don't write things that are untrue, you know.
The Beatles are loved by pretty well everybody
from the moms down to the teenagers.
It seems to me that you're either loved or hated.
Everything we did was so alien to the norm.
They just did not get it.
Why we didn't succumb to being showbiz-y.
All the other bands would succumb to doing
what they're told just for that bit of publicity.
We didn't need it, we avoided publicity in the end.
It was us against the world. It really was.
We were just refusing to conform.
If a kid wants to let his hair grow long
or he wants to wear rags, or he wants to play a guitar
or do anything, or kick a ball in the street
it's nothing to do with us.
If he likes to listen to our music, that's great
if he wants to come to a concert.
But apart from that, we didn't believe
we had any responsibility.
I always thought he didn't like me being in the Stones
'cause he never said anything nice.
He was always moaning about it.
I just don't think that generation could get
into their head that their kids could be successful
in something that wasn't a normal job.
So when I succeeded playing music
a -- and doing better than them
it was out of order, wasn't it?
But my mom did tell me
on a couple of occasions
when t -- they were in the pub
uh, when someone was going on about
"Stones, dirty lot," he would stick up for us.
He'd tell them to mind their own business.
And so he did it without my knowledge
but he never did it to my face.
But he wasn't that kind of a person.
I mean, looking back, I don't blame him
because he -- he had a terrible childhood.
A really terrible childhood.
Everything was changin' in those early '60s.
♪ You're the kind of person you meet at certain ♪
♪ Dismal dull affairs ♪
♪ Center of a crowd talking much too loud ♪
The music, art, fashion.
Suddenly, girls were wearing miniskirts.
It just went right across the board.
♪ And though you try you just can't hide ♪
All the clubs started to appear in London.
You'd bump into the Beatles or the Animals or the Hollies.
Ah, they were just everywhere.
You just moved from one to the other
and sometimes you saw live acts.
You'd go and see Benny King somewhere
and then you'd see Lee Dorsey somewhere else.
I'm at the Scotch of St. James, I met Otis Redding
and talked to him for about half an hour.
You know, when you met those people in those days
they were like gods to me.
I think a lot of it had to do with the music
and then the birth pill
all them British movies
it was coming from everywhere.
It was sort of a hurricane
and we were coming in the middle of it.
♪ Your father's still perfecting ways ♪
♪ Of making sealing wax ♪
♪ You better stop ♪♪
Me and Brian used to go out to the clubs
and pick up girls.
They used to camp outside the hotel on the grass.
You know, of course, I jumped at it
and it just became part of my life after that.
It became a habit just through
honestly, loneliness and just wanting affection.
And these girls were affectionate.
There was probably an addiction to sex
because I wasn't addicted to drugs
and I wasn't addicted to wine.
My first marriage, it never worked.
It was down to the same old thing
of marrying the girl next door was the phrase.
Getting married got me out of the family.
Of course, it did, out of the home.
It was hard coming home to my wife
who obviously knew what was going on.
But then I found at one time, she had a relationship going.
I mean, obviously, I don't blame her.
And then you end up with a child out of the blue
and you just stay together for the sake of the child
which is always the worst thing you can do.
Until I finally got divorced.
She insisted that she would take Stephen
to South Africa with her, which really hurt me.
But then I thought, "Well, it's better that he grows up
with one parent in a normal way of life."
If it isn't with me, then it has to be with her.
I'll get Stephen to say something to you.
Just a minute.
Come and say hello to Dave.
- Hello. - Say hello, Dave.
- Hello. - Say how are you?
How are you? I will see you soon. Bye-bye.
He came back in the summer of '68.
And when I saw the state he was in, I was shocked
because he was complainin' of toothache
he was thin, he didn't look well at all.
So I refused to return him to South Africa.
And then I had to fight for him and a divorce.
I went to the court
and the judge gave me custody, which was a miracle.
And from that day on, I brought Stephen up.
I broke up from my wife.
Astrid, my girlfriend, moved in with me.
I'd met her by then.
We arrived at this gate
and a gardener came with a shotgun broken off
and said, "What do you want?"
And we said, "Is this Gedding Hall?"
And he said, "Yes."
And I said, "We understand that the place is goin' up
for sale tomorrow. Could we have a look?"
And he said, "Well, the owners are not here
but I'll show you 'round the outside."
And I saw this unbelievable house
which I just couldn't believe.
Oh, God, it was extraordinary.
The owner was Jeff Allen.
He took me into the lounge for a cup of tea
and I saw a 10 by 8 photo on the top of the TV
of Ronnie, Reggie and Charlie Kray
saying "Love to Jeff from the boys."
"Uh, what's that, Mr. Allen?"
He says, "Oh, they -- they're the Krays.
They're friends of mine. They're nice lads."
I found later that he was a godfather
and he would invest their money in country houses and stuff
but that's another story.
I asked him how much he wanted for the property
and it was 45,000 pounds.
After being a top band for five years
we didn't have money.
Money always seemed to vanish.
Jeff, bless him, did a deal
and let me have it for a price I could afford.
He said, "I'll tell you what.
"I admire you. You're a self-made man like me.
"I come from the east end of London, you come from London.
It's yours."
It's a wonderful place.
I mean, my soul is there, I think.
I'm never happier than when I'm there.
So when the drug busts were coming in '67
I was just reading it in the press.
Mr. Jagger accused of allowing his home
at West Wittering to be used for the purpose
of smoking cannabis resin, better known as hashish.
And after the three-minute hearing, Jones came out
through the back of the court and drove away
crouching down on the rear seat of a car.
I honestly didn't know whether who was gonna be in jail
what week and who was gonna be in the studio.
I didn't want anything to do with drugs.
I didn't confront it with them.
I just ignored it, stepped away from it
and got stuck into what I wanted to do.
I was avoiding facing their problem
because it wasn't my problem.
So I was living two lives, really.
Once, I had a puff of some bloody joint they had.
Apparently, it had elephant tranquilizer in it.
I went down this corridor and there was someone coming
towards me that I kind of vaguely knew
so I stopped and chatted to them
for about 10 or 15 minutes.
And then I looked up again and it was me.
I was looking in the mirror.
And I thought, "I don't fucking need this."
I have to have my feet on the ground.
I can't go floatin' off.
The emptiness underneath me terrifies me.
I've got a phobia about it.
Most people think there's something else
on the other side of the street which they're not experiencin'
and so they wanna go there and try it out, don't they?
So if you look at any band
and I mean any band from the mid '60s
you've got losses. Every band.
Searching for something that really ain't there.
Brian was a typical example of that.
I was really sad when Brian started
to, uh, fall to bits basically.
We'd be in LA and we'd go out to the clubs
and he'd be on LSD.
And he -- he'd be getting out the limo and going
"Oh, look, there's snakes all over the ground."
He'd be jumping about all over the ground.
Fucking hell, Brian. You know, "The ceiling's on fire."
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it certainly is, Brian.
I just used to let him get on with it, but, um
he would go off on those tangents a lot.
He was thrown out of the band
and he died a month later.
Charlie phoned me up.
He just said, "Brian died."
I couldn't believe it, you know.
The press was so bad at the funeral.
I mean, everybody's around the grave, you know
and they're -- they're putting the coffin in and all that
and the, the preacher's reading -- reading out
and, like, all his family and relatives
are all, like, tranquillized and everything.
Everybody's crying and upset.
There's thousands of fans everywhere.
And there's kids running up to you
asking for autographs, you know.
And, uh, there's press guys with cameras everywhere
like all leaning over you and getting snaps in the..
Oh, man, it was really sick.
There's...movies going and all that, you know.
There was no respect at all.
And when he went, it really sort of got me bad.
Somebody a bit special.
That planned Hyde Park concert
ended up being a bit of a memorial to Brian
because of his death two days earlier.
An English park on a Saturday afternoon
July 5, 1969.
There must be 200,000 people here, youngsters.
In about another hour, I should imagine
there will be a quarter of a million.
And it was extraordinary that day.
Alright!
♪ You know I'm yours and I'm hers ♪
♪ Somebody else's too ♪
♪ You know I'm yours and I'm hers ♪♪
It was Mick Taylor's first show with us.
That must have been a staggerin' thing for him.
The first gig with a band
and you're playin' half a million people.
From every direction I looked at
there were just heads
and it was just like a carpet of different colored hair.
That's what I could explain it as.
The whole day was wonderful.
There was no -- no violence, no fights, no drugs, no..
It just went like a dream.
That autumn, we set off on a tour of America
with Mick Taylor and it was a wonderful tour.
The future of the band was looking very healthy
and positive.
You didn't have so much of the screamin'
or very little of it, and people were listening.
And then came Altamont.
We wanted to repeat Hyde Park in America
as a thank you to the US fans.
Okay, it's definitely on.
The Rolling Stones are not going to appear
at the, uh, raceway in Sonoma.
They've decided now they're going to hold the concert
with the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane, Santana
and, of course, the Rolling Stones at Altamont Speedway
which is halfway between Tracy and Livermore.
What you do is you catch Highway 80..
I don't really like talking about Altamont
'cause it was such an awful, awful, awful event.
The violence just never stopped.
And we kept trying to stop it, and we knew if we just
walked off the stage, it'd probably be worse.
So we hung on and tried to cool people out
and it didn't work.
Four people in the audience, uh, died
one of them from stab wounds, and the argument goes on
about how and what is to blame for that
or how that could have been prevented, I should say.
Sometimes things get out of control
and you can't do anything about it.
It was the death of the '60s, that's what they called it.
The death of the '60s. It was, really.
It was the time when the Stones could have just died
and they nearly did.
By 1970, we all owed
around about 100,000 pounds to the Inland Revenue
which we thought had been paid.
Tax with the labor government was between 83 and 93%.
There was no way we could possibly
earn enough money to pay it back.
♪ I saw her today ♪
It was impossible for us to stay in England
and so we had to go to France.
♪ A glass of wine in her hand ♪
And then, of course, we became the very first tax exiles.
♪ I knew she was gonna meet her connection ♪
It was difficult. We're probably
the most robbed band ever
but you learn, don't you?
♪ You can't always get what you want ♪
I mean, some bands have one shot, they got nothing
that's the end of it.
They don't have the chance of moving on
to improve their situation.
♪ You can't always get what you want ♪
But I hated leaving England. I hated it.
But we were told there was no alternative.
When I left that mornin'
and I left my mom and dad there and my son, Stephen
I was tearful, and I really didn't wanna go.
♪ Fair share of abuse ♪♪
I was sure I wasn't gonna like living in France.
People thought we all went and lived in the same house.
We had to look for somewhere to record
because, you know, we needed a new record.
And in the end, we never found anything.
We have to go to Keith's house to do it.
Keith insists, otherwise Keith ain't ever
gonna go to the session, you know.
That's where we recorded Exile On Main Street.
We did it in the basement of his house.
It was a sad time
because everybody just got absorbed in takin' drugs.
I didn't want it. I didn't want anything of it, apart from the music.
♪ I wanna tell you about a dance ♪♪
We were in this basement, which was like an oven.
And there's pictures of us lying on the floor, you know.
Whatever inconveniences, whatever things were impossible
to deal with sometimes, it worked.
We were dynamite. Un -- unbeatable, really.
Title five, take one.
Last week, New York City finally got to see
and hear the Rolling Stones.
We were the last stop on a tour
that I'm sure most of you have heard about.
Would you ever do 30 cities again
in that amount of time if it were up to you?
As long as I get a holiday, you know.
There's never been so much energy as on this tour.
If the Stones broke up
I don't wanna start any rumors 'cause there aren't any
but if they did, say, next week after this tour
what would you do?
You know, I always tried to live a normal life
when I would finished recording or finished touring
or finished the concert or whatever it was
I'd go back and try to be normal.
We managed to build finances
and be able to pay our taxes and still have money.
And then, of course, it opened me
to a whole new life here.
You've got a lovely suntan.
This presumably is, uh, south of France suntan
because that's where you're living now, is it not?
Yeah, that's my French look.
What do you do when you're there apart from sunbathe?
In France, there are so many different people
to -- to mix with
and, uh, I meet with quite a lot of them
and going to art exhibitions, all kinds of stuff.
It's really nice.
And I did meet Andre Verde
who was the one that introduced me to artists
and poets and writers and sculptors.
And you would go to the little dinners
in the local restaurants.
It became a lovely little family.
And then I met Jimmy Baldwin, fucking hell.
I met him at the Colombe d'Or.
I'd go to his house
and I realized how much he loved Ray Charles.
And I didn't know a lot about Ray Charles.
I'd seen a Ray Charles concert
with Keith and Charlie in '64 in England.
I said to Jimmy, "Can I borrow
some of your Ray Charles' records?"
He said, "Yeah."
He said, "I'll bring them up to your house."
And, God, over the next few days
I just played Ray Charles nonstop
and he became my favorite musician of the 20th century.
Then Andre Verde invited me
to go to Marc Chagall's house.
"You mean Marc Chagall, the painter?"
He said, "Yeah, yeah."
He was absolutely wonderful.
He said, "Your long hair, not original, change it."
I said, "But we were the first band with long hair."
He said, "Oh, that's okay then. Then you are the originals."
I was friends with him for the last eight years of his life.
I got to know the -- the simple way he lived.
You don't avoid all them little things.
They're all part of living, aren't they?
Of course, then you enjoy the bigger things better
if you deal with the little things.
So what's the purpose of doing the tour?
Oh, I got fed up with gardening.
Oh, man, the Rolling Stones are just it, you know.
What do you mean?
They're the greatest rock and roll band in the world.
♪ Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields ♪
♪ Sold in the market down in New Orleans ♪
♪ Scarred old slaver knows he's doin' alright ♪
♪ Hear him whip the women just around midnight ♪
♪ Brown sugar how come you taste so good? ♪
♪ Brown sugar ♪
♪ Just like a good boy should ♪
♪ Yeah yeah yeah woo ♪
♪ Just like a just like a black boy should ♪♪
On a personal sense, Bill, is it difficult
in -- in some respects being a Rolling Stone
in terms of -- of the pressure that --
That's difficult for a start, but carry on.
In terms of the pressure in the sense
that that brings on you as an individual?
There's a lot of difficulties, uh..
I think the main difficulty in being a Rolling Stone
is to pursue your other interests.
I did the first solo album of a Stone in '73
called Monkey Grip.
♪ Good old monkey grip monkey grip ♪
♪ Monkey grip monkey grip ♪♪
I was regarded as bass player of the Rolling Stones.
I was not expected to be anything else
or to do anything else.
You really had to go out there
and try to prove yourself.
You did an album back in '74 with Buddy Guy
uh, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells
who were two of the original Chicago Blues Brothers.
I was just asked to get a rhythm section together
to play with them at the Montreux Jazz Festival
in Switzerland.
I got this phone call from Claude Nobbs.
He said, "I'd like to invite you
"to the Montreux Jazz Festival
"because I've got Muddy Waters
"and he hasn't got a band or anything.
"Do you think you could put
a little rhythm section together?"
We just loaded up, and I drove to Switzerland.
♪ Gonna make pretty women ♪
♪ Jump and shout ♪
♪ Then the world wanna know ♪
♪ What's this all about ♪
♪ But they'll know I'm here ♪
♪ Everybody knows I'm here ♪♪
Buddy Guy and Junior Wells are sittin' on the side
listenin' to us and Buddy says, "Can you be our support band?"
I said, "Yeah, yeah."
♪ The thing that I think I would do ♪
♪ Ooh no one will never know ♪♪
We went there to back up Muddy Waters.
So I needed that bass player to fill every missed note
which I still do.
Every note I missed, I wanted him to...fill in for me
'cause I was missin' a lot of notes back then.
Somebody like him can get the word out faster than I can.
People still look at those guys
as the greatest rock and roll band that ever played.
Glyn Johns rings up and says, "Bill, are you interested
in doing a session tomorrow for me?"
He says, "I need you to play with Howlin' Wolf."
I went, "What? Howlin' Wolf?
Bloody hell, put me in. Who else is on?"
And he says, "Well, I've got Charlie."
And I thought, "Oh, fantastic."
"And Eric Clapton. It will be the three of you."
I went, "Oh, God almighty. I'd love it, yes."
♪ Well I got a little red rooster ♪
♪ Too lazy to crow for day ♪
And so I went down the next day
met up with everybody and said hello to Wolf.
Bloody hell. I was saying hello to my hero.
Alright, let -- let everybody get together then
and we'll try to make it.
Wolf had a voice that, uh, nobody else had.
Oh, man, come on, he..
He ain't got nothin' to do but count off.
Alright, let's get on it.
It was wonderful to do it with Wolf and meet his family.
He was a lovely man, he was so gentle.
He was this gentle giant.
He was terrifying to look at and to be around.
Those moments are there to be caught.
But you're bloody lucky most times if you catch 'em.
♪ Too lazy to crow for day ♪♪
We got the message from the office
that Mick Taylor said I've left.
Fuck, now we were just gonna start recording.
We haven't got a fucking guitar player, you know.
Tune up room session.
Ah!
♪ Baby baby I've been so sad ♪
It finally came down to trying to borrow Woody for the tour.
Borrowing him from the Faces.
♪ Where you do belong ♪
He was a nice catalyst between me and Charlie
and Keith and Mick.
Ronnie was like the clown that sort of linked it all together.
♪ If I ever get back to Fun City ♪
♪ Girl I'm gonna make you scream all night ♪♪
What is it after so many years of touring
that -- that keeps you going?
I don't know. Just playing together.
All -- all the memories and all the places, the people.
Uh, I can't -- I can't explain it.
It's just good to get on the stage
and play in front of people who wanna listen to you.
♪ Mama and papa told me I was crazy to stay ♪
♪ I was a fag in New York I was gay ♪♪
In July '78, I tripped on some cables
and fell about 6 or 7 feet with my guitar
and was knocked out.
Everybody else had gone
and then suddenly realized that I was nowhere around.
So people came back and just saw my silver boots
stickin' out through the curtain.
And for the rest of that tour, I had to play
with two central fingers strapped up.
'81, we toured America.
Massive tour of America, it was wonderful.
'82, we toured Europe.
Same thing. Also massive and wonderful.
♪ I've been holding out so long ♪
♪ I've been sleeping all alone ♪
♪ Girl I miss you ♪♪
And then nothing happened.
Mick and Keith started arguing
and fighting about God knows what.
We never played a gig for seven years.
In the meantime, I started to look out for myself.
Great, let's break and, uh, have some tea
and then we'll come up and listen to it again all the way through, shall we?
That's good. That sounds really good to me.
Everybody wants to do a solo album, but not seriously.
So I sat down and, uh, started writin'.
I -- I made up little cassettes at home
on this terrible little tape recorder I've got
not a ReVox or anything sophisticated.
When I did "Je Suis Un Rock Star," everything went crazy.
♪ Je suis un rock star ♪
♪ Je avais un residence ♪
♪ Je habiter la ♪
♪ A la south of France ♪
♪ Voulez vous ♪
♪ Partir with me? ♪
♪ And come and rester la with me in France ♪
Playing the single now.
That is Bill Wyman, "Si, Si, Chay Suis Un Rock Star."
Am I saying that right, Bill?
"Je Suis Un Rock Star." I am a rock star, yeah.
I don't believe it. I mean, I'm not serious.
Currently in Europe, your single is, uh
in the top ten, right? In -- In England?
Yeah, it's gone top 15 in every country so far
and I'm really pleased with it.
I'm very naively excited about having a hit record
just like I was in '63 with the Stones.
It's -- it's like Christmas.
♪ Je avais un residence ♪♪
Tell me, Bill, is it different
when a superstar goes to the men's room
than for your average ordinary person?
Um, yeah.
What's the difference?
- You have a super pee. - Super pee.
Everybody thought that our life was so romantic
and wonderful and exciting and all that.
It was for two hours, if you were on stage.
The rest of the time was boredom.
It's very difficult to keep your sanity, actually.
You moved away from all your friends.
You were always traveling.
You're always on the road, you know.
So it's forever changin'.
Nothing's kind of permanent.
There was no time.
I mean, you looked around suddenly
and you hadn't seen your cousin Peter for two years
and even brothers and sisters you almost lose touch with
because you're -- you're livin' in a different world.
I got this invite to go to this event
and there was all these people dancing in the front.
I saw this beautiful girl with her hair up.
I spoke to her and found her name was Mandy Smith.
It was from the heart. It wasn't from, like, lust
or anything like that which people was seeing it as.
Bill, were you in any way, were you in any way hesitant
having been a bachelor boy for so long
or free -- free spirit for so long
were you very hesitant about
taking the months of marriage again?
No, I always thought she was the right girl
from the moment I met her, but it was just the wrong time.
She was too young.
I thought she had to go out and see life a bit
before she could make that kind of a decision.
He is the rebel Rolling Stone
but their wedding blessing today
could not have been more traditional.
They both said they wouldn't feel married
without the formalities of a church service.
And those they had, right down to the confettis.
When we first met each other, actually.
When, like, years ago, we wanted to get married
but obviously we couldn't.
The things work out in the end if they're right
and we always thought it was right since the beginning
and, uh, here we are.
I was really stupid to ever think it could possibly work.
Two sad marriages, really
and I decided it was time I got my fucking life in order.
Five, four, three, two, one.
Fire.
♪ Start me up ♪
♪ If you start me up I'll never stop ♪
We hadn't played one show from '82 to '89.
So it was a coming together again
but I saw it as a grand finale.
We did five Wembley Stadiums
we did six Shea Stadiums in New York.
We went to Japan for the first time.
We played the Tokyo Dome, 45,000 people
ten shows one after the other.
It was fantastic.
♪ I can't get no ♪
In Prague, we played to 130,000 people
because they came from Poland and Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
All in all, those three tours
we played 120 shows
seven and a quarter million people.
It was extraordinary.
♪ Supposed to fire my imagination ♪
♪ I can't get no ♪♪
We finished that tour.
I just sat back
and I thought this is a nice time to end my career
with the Rolling Stones, on a big high.
So I left.
All those 31 years with the band
I -- I absolutely loved what we did
loved what we achieved.
But I needed to sort out my personal life and my future.
There's a very happy bird up there.
It's fantastic.
They're really cute little butterflies.
♪ Love is such a wonderful thing ♪
♪ When you need it ♪
♪ Look around for it ♪
♪ Love is such a wonderful thing ♪♪
Go on, you go.
You've got a better memory than me on those days.
- Oh, yeah. Why? - The romantic moments.
Yeah, why do you forget all the romantic moments?
I do. I -- I remember all the other stuff.
You remember all the facts, but you forget all the romantic moments.
Yeah.
Suzanne and I met in 1979
and she became the inspiration for "Je Suis Un Rock Star."
- Can you see me in there? - Can you say famous?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Hi.
We are cliche.
I was a model, he was a musician.
He was with a photographer, I was quite bored at the party
and I thought I should probably go up and talk to this photographer.
And Bill started to chat me up
and I started to -- to talk about music
askin' him why he was so interested in music.
And I felt kind of bad that I didn't recognize him.
And that's Matilda.
We got you.
Can we use your paintbrushes?
I guess so. It's a bit late now, isn't it?
Oh, we'll have to get these eggs.
When we decided to get married, it was to have a family.
He wanted to start life over again.
He just wanted to have a normal life.
He wanted to be able to walk down the street
and be able to go to a movie theater
without being bothered.
He just wanted to know what that felt like.
Yeah, so.. Shh.
When we got married and when we had the kids
it gave him time.
I think time is his foundation
and he wants to use all this time
in a very productive way.
He just has this need
to almost relive what he experienced
and put it in some sort of order
and find out who he really was and what he'd gone through.
So he started to dig out the old boxes
scannin' things..
...and really started to look at it
as a life's work ahead of him
that he had to complete.
I think when he works on the archive, it inspires him.
It's almost like he has a treasure
and he wants to share it with someone else.
And I decided to play music again.
Forming the Rhythm Kings enabled me to play
with a whole variety of wonderful musicians
and dig into the roots of -- of music
finding a lot of early stuff
which had been forgotten about and reviving it.
Do you mind, sir, putting that down?
We can't have that going on here.
The atmosphere on the bus, it's like, uh, it's a family.
He likes being around players.
He likes the jokes.
All his life, he's been a working player.
Bill is the kind of artist who wants to do the music
but he doesn't necessarily have to have
all the adulation for it.
He's playing his music for himself.
You have to have that courage to take that other road
to be yourself, to find yourself
because you can get lost in this road to stardom.
I mean, you really can, and that's all you have
and then maybe at the end of your life, you're like
"Wow, I wish I had, you know, taken a few moments
to stop and smell the roses."
And I don't think that Bill will ever say that.
I think he has been able to not only smell them but name them.
To have gone through that life experience
and still be very rooted, really the child of the 1940s
I mean, you're looking at old England with this guy.
People only really get bothered by fame
or it disturbs them is when they start acting famous.
I don't think Bill ever started acting famous.
I can get by on things we do
and, uh, some better than average
better than some and worse than some.
But, uh, you can always learn
and you never become as good as you'd like to.
I don't think, no matter what you play.
♪ Georgia Georgia ♪
Ray Charles was playing at the South Bank.
And halfway through the concert, Ray Charles decides to do
"Georgia On My Mind" on the piano
and he dismisses the band and the Raylettes and everyone
and he's by himself on the stage, and he starts..
♪ Georgia da da da Georgia ♪
And it was so emotional.
The whole audience, 4000 people in tears.
With Ray Charles, and I thought
"No one, no one
gets an audience like that, you know, except him."
It was amazing. And, uh, anyway, the concert finished.
See, I get emotional because it was so fantastic.
It finished, and the people, and my friends said
"Can we go backstage and meet him?" And I went..
I said, "Musicians, they don't really like people
"coming backstage when they've just come offstage.
"They're exhausted, and they're tired, and they're sweaty
and they just wanna have a break and all that."
So I said, "No, I'd rather not."
They said, "Alright, but just stay here until the audience go
and then we can go quieter out."
While we were waiting there, someone came
from backstage, and they came over and said, um
"Mr. Charles knows you're here and he wants to invite you."
Because you admire him more than any other musician
don't you, yeah?
You know, it was, it was a fantastic moment.
- Just wait a minute. - It's okay.
Ah! Leave it a minute.
So..
Yeah, he, uh..
We went backstage and met him.
He was...fantastic.
- I can't do it, sorry. - Anyhow, they asked him..
Ray Charles asked him if he would play on his next album and --
- And I chickened out. - He just said how could I --
I said, "I'm not good enough."
That's what he.. Yeah.
You just, well, you didn't say it to his face --
- I did. - Did you really?
- Yeah. - Oh, my God.
I didn't know that.
- Yeah. - And what did he say?
He was, we -- we spent half an hour in his dressing room.
He's absolutely fantastic.
And then he said that.
He said, "Would you like to play on my next album?"
I said, "I'm not good enough."
♪ Just an old sweet song ♪
♪ Keeps Georgia on my mind ♪♪
Almost every bass player I've ever met
is always a big guy with huge hands.
When I was a little boy, you know
all my heroes were the little guys.
I think there's something about being the little guy
you always wanna prove that you can still do it
against the big guys
and that's the drive.
And it's been my drive all my life.
You make your own way, don't you?
You just head in directions that you think are good at the time.
Something magical happened.
Something unusual. Something rare.
Which shouldn't have really happened to a working-class boy
from South London, and it's bizarre.
It's a bizarre life I've had.
Bill Wyman. I play bass...guitar.
I think we're done here, aren't we?
♪ Tell you a secret ♪
♪ You gotta keep it hid ♪
♪ Tell you about a woman ♪
♪ And the things she did ♪
♪ She took my money ♪
♪ And she took my pride ♪
♪ I'm gonna tell you a secret ♪
♪ I got nothing to hide ♪
♪ Because I'm moving on down the line ♪
♪ I'm gonna leave that no-good woman ♪
♪ Get that devil woman off my mind ♪
♪ I'll take the moonlight special ♪
♪ Moonlight special ♪ ♪ Gonna do it right ♪
♪ Yeah the moonlight special ♪ ♪ Moonlight special ♪
♪ And travel overnight ♪
♪ I'm going up the country ♪ ♪ I'm going up the country ♪
♪ Where I can't be found ♪
♪ Find a hideaway and keep my ear close to the ground ♪
♪ Yes I'm moving on down the line ♪
♪ I'm gonna leave that no-good woman ♪
♪ Get that devil woman off my mind ♪
♪ Aww tell me ♪
♪ She's a mean mistreater ♪ ♪ Mean mistreater ♪
♪ And she treat me bad ♪ ♪ Treat me bad ♪
♪ She's a robber and a cheater ♪
♪ Robber and a cheater ♪
♪ She's got me mad ♪ ♪ Got me mad ♪
♪ Gonna wash that woman ♪ ♪ Gonna wash that woman ♪
♪ Right out of my mind ♪ ♪ Right out of my mind ♪
♪ I'm gonna leave that woman ♪ ♪ Gonna leave that woman ♪
♪ Leave that woman way behind ♪
♪ 'Cause I'm moving on down the line ♪
♪ I'm gonna leave that no-good woman ♪
♪ Get that devil woman off my mind ♪
♪ I'm gonna tell you a secret ♪
♪ Gonna keep it hid ♪
♪ I'm gonna tell you a secret ♪
♪ Ooh about the things she did ♪
♪ I'm gonna tell you a secret ♪
♪ Gonna keep it hid ♪
Shh.
♪ Early in the morning about the break of day ♪
♪ That's when my baby ran away ♪
♪ Crying and pleading won't do no good ♪
♪ Come back baby I wish you would ♪
♪ I love you girl I can't help myself ♪
♪ Oh aah ♪
♪ Go ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Oh ♪♪
Goodnight.
Everyone, this is Rhythm Kings.
Goodnight to you all.