Back to Basics

2015 release, the first solo album in 33 years by the former Rolling Stones bassist. The album wears it's influences on its sleeve - Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, JJ Cale - and there's more than a passing nod to Bill's own English background. It is that rare thing, a meld of styles and genres that actually work together - uplifting in a jaunty, dancey way and pensive in a bluesy, narrative way. As might be expected from one of the world's best known bass players, Back To Basics drives along with a rhythmic muscularity, and then slows the pace for more autobiographical lyric and melody. It is an album that warrants repeated play. It is also an album that's long overdue... Bill Wyman's last solo UK album, Bill Wyman, was released in 1982.