WHAT MAKES BILLY SWIM?

'Scuse me, all you Messrs. Next-BigThing out there. All you whiz kid garage guitarists, lawyers who'd rather play bass than get tangled up in probate, dreamers of a gig at some CBGB's followed next week by Shea Stadium, and all you other guys who persist in getting radical shags down at the local blow dry palace long after it's become unfashionable for all but the precious few who'd look out of place on their album covers without them (and if you just cut it short, you really need help).

Think twice before you take that big plunge off the deep end. Tell Clive he can waiTfiveminutes with the contract. You better make sure the swimming pool of your life has some water in it.

And while ydu're at it, watch out that the brains in the band, the guys who keep yelling "Jump, Jump" as you stand at the end of the diving board, aren't the kind who'll end up pointing and snickering at the bump on your empty head in front of some steamy 13-year-old piece of 'tang you'd like to have sit in on a rough mix.

It happened in THE GREATEST FUCKING ROCK & ROLL BAND IN THE WORLD, it can happen to you. You should only be so lucky? Read on.

Ponder a moment the case of Bill Wyman. You'd gladly change places? And why not? Sheeit, he gets to talk to Mick and Keith almost any time he wants to, plays backgammon with Hugh Hefner, has himself a fatale wife who smokes skinny little black cigars, and gets to wear clothes that are too small for him in front of 20,000 people, with only a clear plastic bass to cover the crotch.

You grow tumescent at the mere thought, no doubt. I must confess that even my own secret labors at the guitar these past several years have been motivated largely by hopes that when Mick Taylor went the way of all flesh, the telephone would ring and it would be Keith asking rhe would I like to have a go.

But — and all future really big rock stars including Ron Wood take note — Bill has head-firsted into the concrete enough times to know better since that day, as legend/ has it, when those strange cats buddied up to him just because he had a big amplifier.

This poor bugger is pushing 40 hard, and what has he got to show for it? "In Another Land"? Some truly fine bass riffs in the middle of "Jumpin' Jack Flash"? Wonderful, but what are his kids gonna tell their kids their gr$nddaddy did with his life? By then, Bill's instrument (along with all the others) and the human diaphragm will have long been bleeped out of the picture by the Great Synthesizer. They'll think he was a dinosaur.

For God's sake, Bill Wyman still refers to the Rolling Stones as "they," it's been that meaningful. And now, like a terminal cancer warder or prison lifer, the guy needs some kind of therapy to get him through the worst, which is certainly yet to come. Perfectly understandable. For some it's basket weaving

or license plate making. For Bill, it's making solo albums. Which is not so bad^until you consider the vinyl shortage and the PVC-spells-cancer scare.

But wait a minute. Let's back off and set one thing straight before we go any further. Let no one think Bill has gone these many years as a member of that most famous fivesome/foursome (told ya to watch those swimming pools)/ four-and-a-halfsome/foursome plus uncertainty / soon - to - be - fivesome again, without learning to bear his heavy cross with dignity, or at least correctly.

Keith is much more totally into THE ROLLING STONES. Nothing wrong about that. I think itfs amazing but it doesn't suit my needs.

Picture, if you will, a Plaza suite, ineluding kitchen, on about two in the PM of a recent Wednesday. Pay attention, cause this is textbook r&r procedure from the people who wrote the book, and you'll need to know all this stuff if you persist ip your desire to become a star when you've finished this. Bill, bangs and all, sips his morning tea on the couch, having just gotten out of bed. This, you might already have guessed, is because he has spent most of the previous night "in the studio," "doing the mixes" on his new solo album, Stone Alone, as well as on the new Stones together album. As required by Sec. 6, paragraph III, he is nursing a bad cold, and his complexion is a perfectly neutral 50% grey — which photographs well. Going all the way by the book, he is barefoot.

Now for the best part. Just as I'm about to ask if that position in the band is still open and would they consider an unknown musical quantity, my heart pitter-patters, almost audibly, at the sight of the TV. It's on, of course, with the sound turned all the way down. But — and here's where experience and professionalism show — the face on the screen belongs to Mister Rogers, who is prancing around his neighborhood. It's too good. I begin to suspect an outside consultant has been brought in.

We get down to the business at hand, which is to have Bill play and pitch his album. Now, the disc itself is harmless enough as a therapeutic exercise. Heck, you could probably come up with something a lot like it if you rounded up Danny "Kootch" Kortchmar, Dallas Taylor, Jim Keltner, Nicky Hopkins, the Tower of Power horn section, and the usual list of suspects from the ranks of the idle bored: Leon Russell, Dr. John, A1 Kooper, Ron Wood, Van Morrison, two Pointer Sisters, and anyone else with a name that makes for good liner copy. The process guarantees a product something like Dewar's "It never varies" scotch, only without the unvarying kick. Plain yogurt for the ears. By a fascinating coincidence, Bill's singing voice bears a striking resemblance to Ringo's, and he's managed to make something of a second career turning this stuff out. Of course, Bill has the advantage 6f being his own Richard Perry.

The great thing is, Bill seems genuinely stimulated by this venture, and is eager to explain his ambitions for Stone Alone, as well as the philosophy be1 hind same, which goes something like this: "I think it's very important to have variety, the change from a country song to a reggae, to '50's oldies, to a ragtime, to today's music, whatever, just keep changin'it."

Today's music. Mantovani and his orchestra, Mitch Miller...This is eclectic ego massage, but there's more. There usually is. "This is quite a different album from the first one," Wyman opines. You remember Monkey Grip, of course, Bill's first piece of bizarrotica about two years back?

"This is much more commercial than the last album. The first one was...just an album, you know? I didn't think about singles, then everybody wanted singles and there weren't any. This time out I've made it much more commercial, with a lot of singles. Now I've got too many hahahah."

I get to listen along with Bill as he checks out a brand new mix on one of the cuts for the first time. As he cues it up on the turntable, he mumbles something that sounds like "disco mix." I'm a trifle flustered, feeling like Ive been ambushed. Never expected to have to discuss the disco menace with the greatest bass player in the greatest rock & roll band in the world.

"You mentioned disco play?" I ask, hoping I heard him wrong. "Is that something you're really trying to key this record to?"

"It's been suggested that a couple of tracks they'd like to do as disco tracks, yes." They.

"It's hard to imagine Bill Wyman as a disco act, but what do you think of that whole genre in general?"

"I don't totally understand it... 'probably 'cause I don't go outdancing."

Today's music. Gotcha. You want songs? We got all kinds of songs. You just look through this bunch here and see what you like. Call on me when you make up your mind. No rush, glad to help.

So. Mr. Freud is none other than the familiar old man in the green visor. Therapy as a growth industry! I am beginning to understand the respect Bill pays to the surprisingly many they$ in his life. Bouncing the head off swimming pool bottoms will make the best of us passive after a while. Bill's prdblem, I am to discover, is compounded by residual resentment.

As I rummage througff this musical department store, a couple of things catch my ear. There's "Apache Woman," a catchy Wyman original with lines like:,"Apache woman/You know we did you people wrong/Let's get it back together/Let's get it on." Now that should speed Marlon's recovery from ptomaine. Then there's "Get It On" — new tune, different from the last one — which really strikes me as having some potential. First verse: "Get it on, it's a real nice feelin', get it on," etc.. .Second verse: "Get it out, it's a real nice feelin', get it out," etc...Third and last verse: "Get it in, it's a real nice feelin', get it in," etc...I'm really responding to this stuff, as it panders to just my level. But then I get another Gospel recitation from Bill.

"It'll never get on the radio. I played it for what's-'er-name.t.Allispn? [Allison Steele, "The Nightbird," NY FM jockette.] And she loved the whole album, but she said she could never play this one, she'd get killed if she did. " Right, just followin' orders, this old bass player is. Successful therapy requires some discipline.

Now, I'm trying to get this supposed partner in a hugely successful business to verbalize the real motivation behind this need to wax his own platters. I mean, he appears genuinely enthusiastic about the project, talking about what he might or might not do if he gets a numero uno single out of it. But what cruel affliction makes a man with the world on a halfshell already pen such ditties as "Peanut Butter Time" ("a sexual fantasy")? Let's face it, it's not in the same league with eating a candy bar (off a human plate at a party while the bobbies barge in to make a bust, an experience Keith R. has been reported as having under his belt.

TURN TO PAGE 82.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 44.

The talk, strangely enough, turns to the Rolling Stones. I ask if Ijie thinks he might now take an active hand in writing RS songs, as opposed to Bill Wyman solo career songs.

"Mick and Keith don't give much... encouragement to the other members of the band. You know, there's a few times when they've said, ''Have you got a song?' you know, and I've reluctantly said 'Yes,, I have,' 'cause I know it's a waste of time in goin' ahead with it. And we might spend 15 minutes roughin'' through it and then all go home and then next day it's all forgotten about, you know? Whereas, a song by Mick and Keith you can work on for four days, take 30 hpurs to cut the track, but 15 or 20 minutes is the kind of limit I've got to show it's a good song. It's kind of a waste of time at present you know. People have said, 'I could hear some things here [on Stone A/one] that the Stones could do.' But I don't know whether the Stones think the material is right for the Stones, and it doesn't bother me either way whether it is or isn't."

And sticks and stones will break my bones, but this solo album is all mine and they can't tell me what to do baby. So. there'. Except the theys seem fp tell him a lot. Disco?

I guess the moral is, you sweet initiates who are driving the prices of vintage Les Paul's through Vthe roof these days, if you have any ideas about sticking it out as a famous rock star past your 30th, or 35th birthday, put down that guitar and start writing songs IMMEDIATELY. Establish that leader' persona right away, get it written into your contract if possible, but by all means avoid travelling the path that leads to the kind of frustration that results in solo albums featuring famous washouts and session guitarists who sound like mosquitos flying in your ear on a hot summer's night.

See, arid you thought everything would be gravy once you made it to the top of the compost heap. Well, catch a little more of Bill's Complaint:

"My whole time is engrossed with the Stones and my solo career and the little time I have with my family and hobbies, which are $lso very important to me. I mean, I don't just live for the Rolling Stones, you know. 1 would say that Keith does, as an example. I don't think Charlie does. We've got our home lives, and that's as important to us as the Rolling Stones. Mick's got films and ...whatever — he's got other things happenin'. Keith is much more totally into THE ROLLIN' STONES. Which is nothing to.. .nothing wrong about that, you know? I think it's amazin', but it doesn't suit my needs."

I inquire when Bill the family man was last home. "Well, there was a few weeks at Christmas, two weeks in September...In the last year I was home about seven or eight weeks. That's not enough for me."

. "Could you see yourself doing any singing onstage with the Stones?" I ask, thinking about those Billy Preston interludes of last summer.

"If I Could sing things.. .backups they panted...that kind of singin'..."

"But your own things, can you see doing that?"

"No, because I don't think it's got anything to do with the Rolling Stones. The same as I wouldn't expect if Woody finally joins, which is pretty close, I don't think the Rolling Stones should perform live onstage one of Woody's songs, 'cau*te it's not the Rolling Stone's. Therefore, I don't think even if I' have a number one record that I Should do that onstage with the Rolling Stones. It's another thing."

Finally we indulge in a little chit-chat about the Stone Alone cover, proofs of which have just been sent up for Bill's approval. It dawns on me that I'm looking at the visual equivalent to "today's music." The photo gives us Bill Wyman in a lot of makeup, looking like he's reaching for a sort of Lou-Reed-blackperiod-butch effect. Bill explains, animated like a man with a new lease on life, that Pierre Laroche—the Stones makeup man who came up with the cover concept — "has changed my image, if you like, from one thing to the other. But he hasn't changed it so that it isn't me anymore."

I gotta be me, I GOTTA be me, to be willing to try..,

"But I AM different from what everybody thinks I am. When they meet me they always say, 'Wow, I always thought you were six feet six or something and you're so short, and I thought you'd be a mean bastard and you seem quite normal.'"

Perfectly normal. Except for this little neurosis called getting old and in the way. Lookout, it could happen to you.