Preview clip: Can You Hear Me?
Who could possibly entice Jimmy Page, Chris Rea, Charlie Watts, Paul Rodgers, Gary Brooker and a dozen more luminaries into the same band? Bill Wyman, that's who. The former Stones bassist originally assembled the Poor Boys for a charity gig, but they had such fun playing together that they cut two albums, one in the studio, one on the road. The good news is that this package includes them both.
CLICK HERE to buy Poor Boy Boogie - SIGNED BY BILL WYMAN
Featuring: Bill Wyman, Andy Fairweather Low, Charlie Watts, Chris Rea, Jimmy Page, Paul Rodgers, Kenney Jones, Geraint Watkins, Mickey Gee, Terry Williams, Gary Brooker, Graham Broad, Jimmy Henderson, Terry Taylor.
Album details
Willie And The Poor Boys
POOR BOY BOOGIE: THE WILLIE AND THE POOR BOYS ANTHOLOGY CD
Castle Music (Sanctuary Records Group Ltd) CMQDD1307)
Released: April 17th, 2006 (Castle Records CMQDD1307)
Liner Notes
by David Wells
Over the last decade or so, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings have established themselves as probably the former Stone's most satisfying extracurricular project, with a host of good friends and famous names coming together to cover pretty much every musical base close to the bassist's heart. Anyone who's been to a Rhythm Kings gig or bought one of their CDs will be able to confirm the band's prowess, but it's sometimes forgotten that their roots lie in another of Wyman's all-star, Roots/R&B-oriented big band ensembles. Willie and The Poor Boys were an irregular but surprisingly long-lived outlet fort Bill's own musical tastes, while he was still a member of The Stones.
For something that evolved into a whole lot of fun for all the participants, the Willie and The Poor Boys project had its origins in tragic circumstances. In the late 1970s, former Small Faces and Faces bassist Ronnie Lane was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis - an apparently incurable disease of the central nervous system. Refusing to succumb, by 1983 he was attempting to establish the foundation Action for Research into Multiple Sclerosis (aka ARMS). However, Ronnie's debilitating illness meant that he was unable to fully support himself: ARMS desperately needed to raise funds, both for general research and, more specifically, to pay for the MS treatments that Lane needed.
Thus it was that, in early 1983, Ronnie's girlfriend, Boo Oldfield, contacted producer Glyn Johns (who'd worked with Lane since the halcyon days of The Small Faces) in an attempt to organise a fundraising concert for ARMS. As producer for the British Rock aristocracy, Johns certainly had the contacts to pull together such an event: indeed, at the time he was working with Eric Clapton in staging a Command Performance for the Prince of Wales at the Royal Albert Hall. Johns extended the booking at the venue so that two all-star fundraisers could be held on consecutive nights (20 and 21 September). The second night, which saw the participants presented to Prince Charles and Lady Diana, was in aid of the Prince's Trust, but the first night was for ARMS.
It was a resounding success, hailed the following weekend by an uncharacteristically effusive Mail On Sunday as "...the show of the decade". In addition to an appearance from Ronnie Lane during the encore, the shows featured various band permutations, including all three former Yardbirds guitarists (Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck), Steve Winwood, Lane's former colleague Kenney Jones, a brace of Stones (Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts) as well as the likes of Andy Fairweather-Low, Ray Cooper, Chris Stainton and Simon Philips.
In fact, the two nights at the Albert Hall were so enjoyable for all concerned that, in late November, the show moved on to America, by which time Joe Cocker (replacing the unavailable Winwood) and former Free/Bad Company frontman Paul Rodgers had also become involved. Shows were played in Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, with a third Stone, Ron Wood, taking part in the two consecutive nights at Madison Square Garden in the second week of December.
The pivotal involvement of Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts was down to Glyn Johns, who, in addition to producing various Stones classics, had been friendly with Bill since the mid-60s, when they had formed their own publishing company as well as co-managing Pop group The End. While Johns had acted as enabler for the ARMS show, he was essentially a background figure rather than a leader of men. Wyman, on the other hand, was a born organiser who was growing increasingly frustrated by his subservient role in the Stones, and he soon began to derive more enjoyment from this side project than from his main source of employment. "It was great fun to play with these guys", he now admits of the American shows, "and we felt we did a good job in raising awareness of this crippling disease."
With Bill in the saddle, the ad hoc all-star charity gigs (for which purposes their participants had been collectively known as The All Star Band) slowly developed into a solo project that he christened Willie & The Poor Boys, with Bill - or William Perks, as he'd been known in his pre-Stones days - as the titular Willie. In August 1985 he attempted to explain the name to American chat show king David Letterman. "When we were at school, they used to call me little Willie. I never quite worked that one out, I didn't understand - it looked alright to me, you know..." Leaving aside such knockabout ribaldry, the name was primarily inspired by Willy & The Poor Boys, a 1970 album by one of Bill's favourite bands, Creedence Clearwater Revival.
While Ronnie Lane moved to Houston in 1984 to receive specialist treatment for MS and set up an American branch of ARMS, Bill developed the concept of Willie & the Poor Boys. Subsequent to the release in November 1983 of the latest Stones album, Undercover, Mick Jagger had recorded the single State Of Shock with Michael Jackson and his brothers before spending six weeks in Nassau working on a solo album. With The Stones effectively on the back burner, and concurrent to the appearance on video of the previous Autumn's Albert Hall ARMS fundraiser, Bill started to piece together his own extracurricular LP, to be titled Willie & The Poor Boys.
The bulk of the album was recorded over a fortnight in November 1984, with an additional two days recording the following January to accommodate Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers, who were there to feature prominently on covers of Otis Redding's These Arms Of Mine and Little Richard's Slippin' And Slidin'. With the exception of Poor Boy Boogie, an impressive authentic pastiche co-written by Wyman and Andy Fairweather-Low, all songs were vintage American Blues/R&B/Swing/Rock'n'Roll material, ranging from the pioneering Amos Milburn's 1948 R&B hit Chicken Shack Boogie and Zydeco king Clifton Chenier's equally irresistible All Night Long, to more obvious fare like Chuck Berry's You Never Can Tell and Delta bluesman Big Joe William's timeless Baby Please Don't Go (as popularised in the US by Muddy Waters, and the UK by Van Morrison's Them).
With Bill doubling up as producer and bassist - and even, on All Night Long and You Never Can Tell, lead singer - the album attracted a host of famous names. In addition to the presence of Page and Rodgers (who by that point had formed The Firm), Charlie Watts and Kenney Jones shared drum responsibilities with Henry Spinetti (a session musician who'd recently been playing with Eric Claptoin, George Harrison and members of The Who) and former Rockpile/Man stalwart Terry Williams; Chris Rea contributed a particularly effective lead vocal to Baby Please Don't Go; while former Elton john percussionist Ray Cooper guested on Lee Dorsey's Can You Hear Me? and You Never Can Tell. However, the Poor Boys' backbone was supplied by Wyman, Andy Fairwearther-Low (guitar, occasional bass, lead vocals on Can You Hear Me?, Let's Talk It Over and Sugar Bee), Mickey Gee (lead and rhythm guitars, lead vocal on Revenue Man) and Geraint Watkins (keyboards, accordian, lead vocals on Chicken Shack Boogie and Saturday Night), with invaluable support provided by horns players Steve Gregory and Willie Garnett.
On the 11th and 12th March 1985, Willie & The Poor Boys filmed a thirty minute video at Fulham Town Hall. Dressed up as a late 50s Rock'n'Roll show, it was invaluable promotion for the forthcoming album, with cameo roles for Ringo Starr (as janitor), Chris Jagger and John Entwistle (both as audience members) adding to the newsworthiness that saw BBC TV's breakfast show Good Morning Britain reporting from the shoot and interviewing the project's key players. The band played seven songs from the album; their performance of Baby Please Don't Go was later pressed into service as a promo video for the album's lead single, while the Fulham Town Hall set was put out in its entirety that June as a stand-alone video. With such an all-star cast, it inevitably attracted plenty of media coverage, with extracts appearing on both British and American television. Perhaps more importantly, and in common with all Willie & The Poor Boys projects, all profits were once again donated to ARMS.
Housed in a sleeve design that showed a caricature of Bill with Teddy Boy quiff and trademark fag in mouth, the album Willie & The Poor Boys emerged at the end of April, through Wyman's own record label, Ripple. It didn't chart, but its enterprising song selection, superior musicianship and, above all, overwhelming sense of fun won it plenty of admirers. Various permutations of tracks were released as singles in different territories, though the A-sides were invariably Baby Please Don't Go and These Arms Of Mine (Revenue Man also appeared as a German-only A-side). These Arms Of Mine, coupled with Poor Boy Boogie, appeared in 10" format in England, while You Never Can Tell, Revenue Man, Baby Please Don't Go and These Arms Of Mine were gathered together in The States as a now highly collectable DJ-only 12" album sampler.
Bill worked ceaselessly to promote the album, his efforts yielding an intriguing Willie & The Poor Boys special that appeared on American radio station KBFH in early May. In addition to a new interview with Bill, the station played a couple of outtakes from the album in John Lee Hooker's I'm Mad and Willie Dixon's Down In The Bottom. Apparently cut during the November 1984 sessions, neither of these recordings has surface yet.
But, as with all sidelines, the demands of the day job had to come first, and Willie & The Poor Boys faded into the background as Bill concentrated on recording the latest Stones album, Dirty Work. Released in March 1986, Dirty Work had been desultorily assembled over a nine month period, and was, in truth, none too impressive. Increasingly restless, Bill watched Mick (Primitive Cool) and Keith (Talk Is Cheap) make moderately successful solo albums before The Stones came back together at the end of the decade with the Steel Wheels album, which was supported by an epic, gruelling, work tour.
As The Stones became ever-closer to a corporate business than a Rock band, their bassist hankered for a return to the Roots music that was his abiding passion. Though still officially a member, he'd neglected to sign the contract for the band's new record deal with the Virgin label, and he was effectively working his notice when, in the Summer of 1992, he briefly resurrected Willie & The Poor Boys for a tour of Sweden. "It was excellent therapy", he subsequently admitted.
A slightly stripped-down version of the earlier line-up, the resurrected Willie & The Poor Boys were, on this occasion, a six-piece band - Bill on bass and vocals, his old friend Terry Taylor on guitar and backing vocals, Jimmy Henderson (like Terry, formerly a member of Wyman-managed early 70s Rockers Tucky Buzzard) on vocals and harmonica, Andy Fairweather-Low on guitar and vocals, Gary Brooker on keyboards and vocals, and Graham Broad on drums. This sextet was augmented by backing vocalists Maria and Annica (though Maggie Ryder and Miriam Stockley contributed additional backing vox) and saxophonist Ollie Niklasson.
Between 28 July and 1 August, the band played five dates at the Hotel Tylosand in Halmstad (a venue Bill would return to a decade later with The Rhythm Kings), with the gig on 31 July recorded by Lars Hedh for the Swedish radio station P3. A significant proportion of that show was broadcast three weeks later, and was subsequently remastered, it's the P3 transmission that constitutes Disc Two of our anthology, but sadly the rest of the show - which, for the completists amongst you, also included Lucille, She's Looking Good, Route 66, I Can't Stand The Rain and Knock On Wood - seems to be lost for good.
Notwithstanding the unavailability of those five tracks, what we do have is remarkably good gravy. Rollicking versions of Jerry Lee Lewis's High School Confidential and Lovin' Up A Storm are ideal showcases for Gary Brooker's vocal and keyboard prowess, while Jimmy Henderson takes over for a couple of Rockabilly gems in Johnny Burnette's Tear It Up and Bill Le Riley's Red Hot. Other highlights include a superb Baby Please Don't Go, a great medley of a couple of New Orleans R&B classics in Jessie Hill's Ooh Poo Pah Doo and Huey 'Piano' Smith's Rockin' Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu (Brooker once again on great form). Andy Fairweather-Low leading a fiery interpretation of Mystery Train and a tasteful stroll through What'd I Say.
As far as the history books are concerned, that was it for Willie & The Poor Boys. However, on the 18th and 19 December 1992, they got together again for a couple of charity gigs in the tiny Surrey village of Chiddingfold, playing a fairly typical Poor Boys set list that included the likes of High School Confidential, Mystery Train and What'd I Say. Less than three weeks later, Bill let it slip in a live television interview that he had left The Stones.
Following a year's sabbatical in which he barely touched his bass ("I wanted my family life back", he now explains), Bill gingerly got back in the swing of things with a new big band project. But before The Rhythm Kings were up and running, there were still a couple of final thrashes left for Willie & The Poor Boys. A couple of gigs in February and March 1994 (the latter at the Royal Horticultural Hall in aid of the British Lung Foundation) were followed on 29 April by an appearance at the London Apollo for the Mick Ronson Memorial Concert, where a line-up of Wyman, Andy Fairweather-Low, Gary Brooker, Terry Taylor, Henry Spinetti and harmonica player Jerry Portnoy romped through Mystery Train and High School Confidential.
It was to be the final occasion for which then Willie & The Poor Boys billing was used. Over the coming months, the former Stone would piece together Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings with the aid of former Poor Boys like Terry Taylor, Andy Fairweather-Low and Gary Brooker. Borrowing much of their repertoire from Willie & The Poor Boys (Stagger Lee, Mystery Train, Tear It Up, Land Of 1000 Dances, Chicken Shack Boogie, Rockin' Pneumonia etc). The Rhythm Kings would deservedly establish themselves as the best retro show in town, equally adept at whichever particular part of the post-1920s American musical landscape - Jazz, Blues, Swing, Country, Soul, Rock'n'Roll - they chose to tackle. Bill's latest, most enduring sideshow was born. But none of it would have been possible without his experience as leader of Willie & The Poor Boys. As the song says, "Ain't nobody boogie, like a Poor Boy do"...
Disc 1: all tracks (P) 1985
Disc 2: all tracks (P) 1992
Compiled and co-ordinated byt Roger Dopson, or Mighty Bullo Productions
Annotated by David Wells
Design and artwork by Tom Ornshaw for ove Melody
(P) & (C) 2006 Sactuary Records Group Ltd
Track Listing
Disc 1:
Baby Please Don't Go [2:53] (Williams) (Universal/MCA Music Ltd)
Can You Hear Me? [3:10] (Toussaint) (Warner-Chappel Music)
These Arms Of Mine [3:29] (Redding) (Irving Music)
Revenue Man (White Lightning) [2:32] (Unknown) (Copyright Control)
You Never Can Tell [3:54] (Berry) (Tristan Music Ltd)
Slippin' And Slidin' [2:30] (Penniman/Bocage/Smith/Collins) (Copyright Control)
Saturday Night [2:48] (Brown) (Copyright Control)
Lets' Talk It Over [2:58] (Whittaker) (Universal/MCA Music Ltd)
All Night Long [2:32] (Chenier) (Sony/ATV Music Publishing (UK) Ltd)
Chicken Shack Boogie [3:10] (Milburn/Cullum) (EMI United Partnership)
Sugar Bee [3:10] (Shuler) (Fort Knox Music)
Poor Boy Boogie [3:26] (Wyman/Fairweather-Low) (Ripple Music/Rondor Music Ltd)
Disc 2 (live):
High School Confidential [3:04] (Hargrave/Lewis) (Carlin Music Corp)
Tear It Up [3:06] (Burnette/Burnette/Burlison) (Warner Chappell North America)
Baby Please Don't Go [4:58] (Williams) (Universal/MCA Music Ltd)
Medley [6:11]
Ooh Poo Pah Doo (Hill) (EMI United Partnership)
Rockin' Pneumonia & The Boogie Woogie Flu (Smith/Vincent) (Robert Mellin Ltd)
Mystery Train [5:06] (Paker/Phillips) (Carlin Music Corp)
Chicken Shack Boogie [4:02] (Milburn/Cullum) (EMI United Partnership)
Stagger Lee [5:04] (Price/Logan) (EMI United Partnership)
What'd I Say [5:16] (Charles) (Carlin Music Corp)
Red Hot [3:29] (Emerson) (Knox Music)
Lovin' Up A Storm [3:13] (Khent/Dixon) (Windswept Pacific Music)
Medley [6:21]
Poor Boy Boogie (Wyman/Fairweather-Low) (Ripple Music/Rondor Music (London) Ltd)
Hound Dog (Leiber/Stoller) (Carlin Music Corp)
Shake Rattle & Roll (Calhoun) (Campbell Connelly & Co)
Looking for Someone To Love (Holly/Petty) (Peer Music (UK))
Land Of A Thousand Dances [4:45] (Kenner/Domino) (Hornall Brothers Music Ltd)
Who could possibly entice Jimmy Page, Chris Rea, Charlie Watts, Paul Rodgers, Gary Brooker and a dozen more luminaries into the same band? Bill Wyman, that's who. The former Stones bassist originally assembled the Poor Boys for a charity gig, but they had such fun playing together that they cut two albums, one in the studio, one on the road. The good news is that this package includes them both.
CLICK HERE to buy Poor Boy Boogie - SIGNED BY BILL WYMAN
Featuring: Bill Wyman, Andy Fairweather Low, Charlie Watts, Chris Rea, Jimmy Page, Paul Rodgers, Kenney Jones, Geraint Watkins, Mickey Gee, Terry Williams, Gary Brooker, Graham Broad, Jimmy Henderson, Terry Taylor.
Album details
Willie And The Poor Boys
POOR BOY BOOGIE: THE WILLIE AND THE POOR BOYS ANTHOLOGY CD
Castle Music (Sanctuary Records Group Ltd) CMQDD1307)
Released: April 17th, 2006 (Castle Records CMQDD1307)
Liner Notes
by David Wells
Over the last decade or so, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings have established themselves as probably the former Stone's most satisfying extracurricular project, with a host of good friends and famous names coming together to cover pretty much every musical base close to the bassist's heart. Anyone who's been to a Rhythm Kings gig or bought one of their CDs will be able to confirm the band's prowess, but it's sometimes forgotten that their roots lie in another of Wyman's all-star, Roots/R&B-oriented big band ensembles. Willie and The Poor Boys were an irregular but surprisingly long-lived outlet fort Bill's own musical tastes, while he was still a member of The Stones.
For something that evolved into a whole lot of fun for all the participants, the Willie and The Poor Boys project had its origins in tragic circumstances. In the late 1970s, former Small Faces and Faces bassist Ronnie Lane was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis - an apparently incurable disease of the central nervous system. Refusing to succumb, by 1983 he was attempting to establish the foundation Action for Research into Multiple Sclerosis (aka ARMS). However, Ronnie's debilitating illness meant that he was unable to fully support himself: ARMS desperately needed to raise funds, both for general research and, more specifically, to pay for the MS treatments that Lane needed.
Thus it was that, in early 1983, Ronnie's girlfriend, Boo Oldfield, contacted producer Glyn Johns (who'd worked with Lane since the halcyon days of The Small Faces) in an attempt to organise a fundraising concert for ARMS. As producer for the British Rock aristocracy, Johns certainly had the contacts to pull together such an event: indeed, at the time he was working with Eric Clapton in staging a Command Performance for the Prince of Wales at the Royal Albert Hall. Johns extended the booking at the venue so that two all-star fundraisers could be held on consecutive nights (20 and 21 September). The second night, which saw the participants presented to Prince Charles and Lady Diana, was in aid of the Prince's Trust, but the first night was for ARMS.
It was a resounding success, hailed the following weekend by an uncharacteristically effusive Mail On Sunday as "...the show of the decade". In addition to an appearance from Ronnie Lane during the encore, the shows featured various band permutations, including all three former Yardbirds guitarists (Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck), Steve Winwood, Lane's former colleague Kenney Jones, a brace of Stones (Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts) as well as the likes of Andy Fairweather-Low, Ray Cooper, Chris Stainton and Simon Philips.
In fact, the two nights at the Albert Hall were so enjoyable for all concerned that, in late November, the show moved on to America, by which time Joe Cocker (replacing the unavailable Winwood) and former Free/Bad Company frontman Paul Rodgers had also become involved. Shows were played in Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, with a third Stone, Ron Wood, taking part in the two consecutive nights at Madison Square Garden in the second week of December.
The pivotal involvement of Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts was down to Glyn Johns, who, in addition to producing various Stones classics, had been friendly with Bill since the mid-60s, when they had formed their own publishing company as well as co-managing Pop group The End. While Johns had acted as enabler for the ARMS show, he was essentially a background figure rather than a leader of men. Wyman, on the other hand, was a born organiser who was growing increasingly frustrated by his subservient role in the Stones, and he soon began to derive more enjoyment from this side project than from his main source of employment. "It was great fun to play with these guys", he now admits of the American shows, "and we felt we did a good job in raising awareness of this crippling disease."
With Bill in the saddle, the ad hoc all-star charity gigs (for which purposes their participants had been collectively known as The All Star Band) slowly developed into a solo project that he christened Willie & The Poor Boys, with Bill - or William Perks, as he'd been known in his pre-Stones days - as the titular Willie. In August 1985 he attempted to explain the name to American chat show king David Letterman. "When we were at school, they used to call me little Willie. I never quite worked that one out, I didn't understand - it looked alright to me, you know..." Leaving aside such knockabout ribaldry, the name was primarily inspired by Willy & The Poor Boys, a 1970 album by one of Bill's favourite bands, Creedence Clearwater Revival.
While Ronnie Lane moved to Houston in 1984 to receive specialist treatment for MS and set up an American branch of ARMS, Bill developed the concept of Willie & the Poor Boys. Subsequent to the release in November 1983 of the latest Stones album, Undercover, Mick Jagger had recorded the single State Of Shock with Michael Jackson and his brothers before spending six weeks in Nassau working on a solo album. With The Stones effectively on the back burner, and concurrent to the appearance on video of the previous Autumn's Albert Hall ARMS fundraiser, Bill started to piece together his own extracurricular LP, to be titled Willie & The Poor Boys.
The bulk of the album was recorded over a fortnight in November 1984, with an additional two days recording the following January to accommodate Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers, who were there to feature prominently on covers of Otis Redding's These Arms Of Mine and Little Richard's Slippin' And Slidin'. With the exception of Poor Boy Boogie, an impressive authentic pastiche co-written by Wyman and Andy Fairweather-Low, all songs were vintage American Blues/R&B/Swing/Rock'n'Roll material, ranging from the pioneering Amos Milburn's 1948 R&B hit Chicken Shack Boogie and Zydeco king Clifton Chenier's equally irresistible All Night Long, to more obvious fare like Chuck Berry's You Never Can Tell and Delta bluesman Big Joe William's timeless Baby Please Don't Go (as popularised in the US by Muddy Waters, and the UK by Van Morrison's Them).
With Bill doubling up as producer and bassist - and even, on All Night Long and You Never Can Tell, lead singer - the album attracted a host of famous names. In addition to the presence of Page and Rodgers (who by that point had formed The Firm), Charlie Watts and Kenney Jones shared drum responsibilities with Henry Spinetti (a session musician who'd recently been playing with Eric Claptoin, George Harrison and members of The Who) and former Rockpile/Man stalwart Terry Williams; Chris Rea contributed a particularly effective lead vocal to Baby Please Don't Go; while former Elton john percussionist Ray Cooper guested on Lee Dorsey's Can You Hear Me? and You Never Can Tell. However, the Poor Boys' backbone was supplied by Wyman, Andy Fairwearther-Low (guitar, occasional bass, lead vocals on Can You Hear Me?, Let's Talk It Over and Sugar Bee), Mickey Gee (lead and rhythm guitars, lead vocal on Revenue Man) and Geraint Watkins (keyboards, accordian, lead vocals on Chicken Shack Boogie and Saturday Night), with invaluable support provided by horns players Steve Gregory and Willie Garnett.
On the 11th and 12th March 1985, Willie & The Poor Boys filmed a thirty minute video at Fulham Town Hall. Dressed up as a late 50s Rock'n'Roll show, it was invaluable promotion for the forthcoming album, with cameo roles for Ringo Starr (as janitor), Chris Jagger and John Entwistle (both as audience members) adding to the newsworthiness that saw BBC TV's breakfast show Good Morning Britain reporting from the shoot and interviewing the project's key players. The band played seven songs from the album; their performance of Baby Please Don't Go was later pressed into service as a promo video for the album's lead single, while the Fulham Town Hall set was put out in its entirety that June as a stand-alone video. With such an all-star cast, it inevitably attracted plenty of media coverage, with extracts appearing on both British and American television. Perhaps more importantly, and in common with all Willie & The Poor Boys projects, all profits were once again donated to ARMS.
Housed in a sleeve design that showed a caricature of Bill with Teddy Boy quiff and trademark fag in mouth, the album Willie & The Poor Boys emerged at the end of April, through Wyman's own record label, Ripple. It didn't chart, but its enterprising song selection, superior musicianship and, above all, overwhelming sense of fun won it plenty of admirers. Various permutations of tracks were released as singles in different territories, though the A-sides were invariably Baby Please Don't Go and These Arms Of Mine (Revenue Man also appeared as a German-only A-side). These Arms Of Mine, coupled with Poor Boy Boogie, appeared in 10" format in England, while You Never Can Tell, Revenue Man, Baby Please Don't Go and These Arms Of Mine were gathered together in The States as a now highly collectable DJ-only 12" album sampler.
Bill worked ceaselessly to promote the album, his efforts yielding an intriguing Willie & The Poor Boys special that appeared on American radio station KBFH in early May. In addition to a new interview with Bill, the station played a couple of outtakes from the album in John Lee Hooker's I'm Mad and Willie Dixon's Down In The Bottom. Apparently cut during the November 1984 sessions, neither of these recordings has surface yet.
But, as with all sidelines, the demands of the day job had to come first, and Willie & The Poor Boys faded into the background as Bill concentrated on recording the latest Stones album, Dirty Work. Released in March 1986, Dirty Work had been desultorily assembled over a nine month period, and was, in truth, none too impressive. Increasingly restless, Bill watched Mick (Primitive Cool) and Keith (Talk Is Cheap) make moderately successful solo albums before The Stones came back together at the end of the decade with the Steel Wheels album, which was supported by an epic, gruelling, work tour.
As The Stones became ever-closer to a corporate business than a Rock band, their bassist hankered for a return to the Roots music that was his abiding passion. Though still officially a member, he'd neglected to sign the contract for the band's new record deal with the Virgin label, and he was effectively working his notice when, in the Summer of 1992, he briefly resurrected Willie & The Poor Boys for a tour of Sweden. "It was excellent therapy", he subsequently admitted.
A slightly stripped-down version of the earlier line-up, the resurrected Willie & The Poor Boys were, on this occasion, a six-piece band - Bill on bass and vocals, his old friend Terry Taylor on guitar and backing vocals, Jimmy Henderson (like Terry, formerly a member of Wyman-managed early 70s Rockers Tucky Buzzard) on vocals and harmonica, Andy Fairweather-Low on guitar and vocals, Gary Brooker on keyboards and vocals, and Graham Broad on drums. This sextet was augmented by backing vocalists Maria and Annica (though Maggie Ryder and Miriam Stockley contributed additional backing vox) and saxophonist Ollie Niklasson.
Between 28 July and 1 August, the band played five dates at the Hotel Tylosand in Halmstad (a venue Bill would return to a decade later with The Rhythm Kings), with the gig on 31 July recorded by Lars Hedh for the Swedish radio station P3. A significant proportion of that show was broadcast three weeks later, and was subsequently remastered, it's the P3 transmission that constitutes Disc Two of our anthology, but sadly the rest of the show - which, for the completists amongst you, also included Lucille, She's Looking Good, Route 66, I Can't Stand The Rain and Knock On Wood - seems to be lost for good.
Notwithstanding the unavailability of those five tracks, what we do have is remarkably good gravy. Rollicking versions of Jerry Lee Lewis's High School Confidential and Lovin' Up A Storm are ideal showcases for Gary Brooker's vocal and keyboard prowess, while Jimmy Henderson takes over for a couple of Rockabilly gems in Johnny Burnette's Tear It Up and Bill Le Riley's Red Hot. Other highlights include a superb Baby Please Don't Go, a great medley of a couple of New Orleans R&B classics in Jessie Hill's Ooh Poo Pah Doo and Huey 'Piano' Smith's Rockin' Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu (Brooker once again on great form). Andy Fairweather-Low leading a fiery interpretation of Mystery Train and a tasteful stroll through What'd I Say.
As far as the history books are concerned, that was it for Willie & The Poor Boys. However, on the 18th and 19 December 1992, they got together again for a couple of charity gigs in the tiny Surrey village of Chiddingfold, playing a fairly typical Poor Boys set list that included the likes of High School Confidential, Mystery Train and What'd I Say. Less than three weeks later, Bill let it slip in a live television interview that he had left The Stones.
Following a year's sabbatical in which he barely touched his bass ("I wanted my family life back", he now explains), Bill gingerly got back in the swing of things with a new big band project. But before The Rhythm Kings were up and running, there were still a couple of final thrashes left for Willie & The Poor Boys. A couple of gigs in February and March 1994 (the latter at the Royal Horticultural Hall in aid of the British Lung Foundation) were followed on 29 April by an appearance at the London Apollo for the Mick Ronson Memorial Concert, where a line-up of Wyman, Andy Fairweather-Low, Gary Brooker, Terry Taylor, Henry Spinetti and harmonica player Jerry Portnoy romped through Mystery Train and High School Confidential.
It was to be the final occasion for which then Willie & The Poor Boys billing was used. Over the coming months, the former Stone would piece together Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings with the aid of former Poor Boys like Terry Taylor, Andy Fairweather-Low and Gary Brooker. Borrowing much of their repertoire from Willie & The Poor Boys (Stagger Lee, Mystery Train, Tear It Up, Land Of 1000 Dances, Chicken Shack Boogie, Rockin' Pneumonia etc). The Rhythm Kings would deservedly establish themselves as the best retro show in town, equally adept at whichever particular part of the post-1920s American musical landscape - Jazz, Blues, Swing, Country, Soul, Rock'n'Roll - they chose to tackle. Bill's latest, most enduring sideshow was born. But none of it would have been possible without his experience as leader of Willie & The Poor Boys. As the song says, "Ain't nobody boogie, like a Poor Boy do"...
Disc 1: all tracks (P) 1985
Disc 2: all tracks (P) 1992
Compiled and co-ordinated byt Roger Dopson, or Mighty Bullo Productions
Annotated by David Wells
Design and artwork by Tom Ornshaw for ove Melody
(P) & (C) 2006 Sactuary Records Group Ltd
Track Listing
Disc 1:
Baby Please Don't Go [2:53] (Williams) (Universal/MCA Music Ltd)
Can You Hear Me? [3:10] (Toussaint) (Warner-Chappel Music)
These Arms Of Mine [3:29] (Redding) (Irving Music)
Revenue Man (White Lightning) [2:32] (Unknown) (Copyright Control)
You Never Can Tell [3:54] (Berry) (Tristan Music Ltd)
Slippin' And Slidin' [2:30] (Penniman/Bocage/Smith/Collins) (Copyright Control)
Saturday Night [2:48] (Brown) (Copyright Control)
Lets' Talk It Over [2:58] (Whittaker) (Universal/MCA Music Ltd)
All Night Long [2:32] (Chenier) (Sony/ATV Music Publishing (UK) Ltd)
Chicken Shack Boogie [3:10] (Milburn/Cullum) (EMI United Partnership)
Sugar Bee [3:10] (Shuler) (Fort Knox Music)
Poor Boy Boogie [3:26] (Wyman/Fairweather-Low) (Ripple Music/Rondor Music Ltd)
Disc 2 (live):
High School Confidential [3:04] (Hargrave/Lewis) (Carlin Music Corp)
Tear It Up [3:06] (Burnette/Burnette/Burlison) (Warner Chappell North America)
Baby Please Don't Go [4:58] (Williams) (Universal/MCA Music Ltd)
Medley [6:11]
Ooh Poo Pah Doo (Hill) (EMI United Partnership)
Rockin' Pneumonia & The Boogie Woogie Flu (Smith/Vincent) (Robert Mellin Ltd)
Mystery Train [5:06] (Paker/Phillips) (Carlin Music Corp)
Chicken Shack Boogie [4:02] (Milburn/Cullum) (EMI United Partnership)
Stagger Lee [5:04] (Price/Logan) (EMI United Partnership)
What'd I Say [5:16] (Charles) (Carlin Music Corp)
Red Hot [3:29] (Emerson) (Knox Music)
Lovin' Up A Storm [3:13] (Khent/Dixon) (Windswept Pacific Music)
Medley [6:21]
Poor Boy Boogie (Wyman/Fairweather-Low) (Ripple Music/Rondor Music (London) Ltd)
Hound Dog (Leiber/Stoller) (Carlin Music Corp)
Shake Rattle & Roll (Calhoun) (Campbell Connelly & Co)
Looking for Someone To Love (Holly/Petty) (Peer Music (UK))
Land Of A Thousand Dances [4:45] (Kenner/Domino) (Hornall Brothers Music Ltd)
