10/24/1936 AD born
Born William George Perks Jr. in Lewisham Hospital in Lewisham, South London, the son of Molly (née Jeffery) and William George Perks Sr., a bricklayer. One of five children, Wyman spent most of his early life living in the rough streets of Penge, Southeast London. Wyman described his childhood as "scarred by poverty".
He attended Beckenham and Penge County Grammar School from 1947 to Easter 1953, leaving before the GCE exams after his father found him a job working for a bookmaker and insisted that he take it.
Wyman took piano lessons from age 10 to 13. A year after his marriage on 24 October 1959 to Diane Cory, an 18-year-old bank clerk, he bought a Burns electric guitar for £52 (equivalent to £1,224 in 2020) on hire-purchase, but was not satisfied by his progress. He switched to bass guitar after hearing one at a Barron Knights concert. He created a fretless electric bass guitar by removing the frets on a second hand UK-built Dallas Tuxedo bass and played this in a south London band, the Cliftons, in 1961.
He legally changed his surname to Wyman in August 1964, taking the surname of a friend, Lee Whyman, with whom he had done national service in the Royal Air Force as a fighter pilot from 1955 to 1957.
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Bill Wyman (William George Perks) English musician, best k...
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