Bill Wyman - A Stone Alone: The Solo Anthology 1974-2002 (2007)

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Bill Wyman - A Stone Alone: The Solo Anthology 1974-2002 (2007)

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In addition to his three-decade tenure as the bass player in the Rolling Stones, Bill Wyman has pursued two other, distinctly different musical careers, each of which is chronicled on this two-hour-and-35-minute, two-CD compilation. First, beginning with the release of his debut solo album, Monkey Grip, on Rolling Stones Records in May 1974, Wyman worked on his own as a singer, songwriter, and recording artist from then through the early '90s, while at the same time maintaining his position with the Stones. (Annotator David Wells, in his highly informative liner notes, makes clear, however, that Wyman's solo forays tended to be associated with periods of dissension in the band that, at times, made its continued existence doubtful, so they really constituted efforts to establish his name separately and were not just busman's holidays.) The height of these efforts had to be the single "(Si, Si) Je Suis un Rock Star," which, although unreleased in the U.S., was a hit across Europe in 1981.

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Bill Wyman - A Stone Alone: The Solo Anthology 1974-2002 (2007)

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Second, starting in 1983, there were Wyman's assemblages of rock stars and journeymen into pickup bands that played roots rock music, initially the Willie & the Poor Boys project, intended to raise money for the medical expenses of friend Ronnie Lane of Faces, and then, after Wyman's retirement from the Rolling Stones in 1993, the Rhythm Kings. Each of these sides of Wyman's non-Stones activities gets its own disc here. First up, there is a thorough examination of the solo work, choosing tracks from Monkey Grip and its follow-up, Stone Alone (1976), which sound typical of mainstream rock in the mid-'70s, with Wyman proving an adequate singer and songwriter. But his next solo album, Bill Wyman (1982), which was not released stateside, found him delving into synth pop dance-rock. He recorded sporadically after that, with a compilation of rarities, Stuff, released only in Japan and Argentina in 1992. The three tracks from that album, including a version of Ray Davies' "This Strange Effect," are thus welcome.

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Bill Wyman - A Stone Alone: The Solo Anthology 1974-2002 (2007)

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