Stones Photo Session with Peter
Webb, July 1969 Photo: Peter
Webb
The Telegraph - 08 Apr 2013
It is midmorning and Bill Wyman’s Sticky
Fingers burger restaurant in Kensington is empty.
Almost. Then a tourist walks in and takes a photograph of a photograph that is
hanging on the wall. It is of the Rolling Stones, circa 1968. The man
hasn’t realised that one of the rock stars in the picture is sitting a few feet
away, watching him. It’s a scene that can only be described as postmodern.
Apart from the black-rimmed glasses he is wearing today, Wyman doesn’t look
that different from how he did back then. He was never a tall man (5ft 7in) and
his hair is still collar length, if greying now. But he is older: 76.
Indeed, when he orders a vodka and tonic which seems quite rock and roll,
given the time of day, he explains that it is, in fact, because he has backache.
The photograph is one of hundreds of items of memorabilia exhibited here in
the restaurant, including gold discs, Brian Jones’s guitar and Wyman’s bass (the
two instruments together are worth about half a million pounds).
“The stuff here is only a fraction of my collection,” Wyman says. “I’ve got
trunks of it at home.” Indeed he is about to publish Scrapbook, a
limited-edition volume presented in a clamshell box. It features tickets,
posters, programmes, letters, photographs, and much more besides. There’s
Wyman’s birth certificate, letters to – and from – fans, a list of expenses for
the Stones’ accountant, and even his Japanese work visa application form. In
another life he would have loved to have been a librarian, he says, what with
all that indexing and cross-referencing. The next best thing was to become the
band’s archivist.
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