Bass Player: Rick Wills

Rick Wills played in the early days of rock music in Cambridge, from c. 1961 in the Vikings, then in a succession of local bands: the Sundowners, Soul Committee, Bullitt (with David Gilmour on guitar and John ‘Willie’ Wilson on drums) and Cochise before joining Frampton’s Camel.

Wills joined the rock band Jokers Wild in mid-1966, (with David Gilmour on guitars and vocals), until they broke up in 1967. He played bass on Peter Frampton’s first three albums before parting from Frampton in 1975. He became the bassist with Roxy Music in 1976, before leaving them and joining the Small Faces in 1977, during their reunion period. He left the Small Faces and appeared on David Gilmour’s eponymous album in 1978, with Willie Wilson on drums. The next year, Wills became a member of rock band Foreigner and remained with them for 14 years. At that time he was the longest-tenured bass player of Foreigner, though was later surpassed by Jeff Pilson.

After leaving Foreigner in 1992, he joined Bad Company and stayed with them until Boz Burrell rejoined the band in 1998. In July 1999 he filled in for Lynyrd Skynyrd bassist Leon Wilkeson for live shows when Wilkeson briefly took ill. He appeared at The Steve Marriott Memorial Concert on 24 April 2001, as part of a backing band with Bobby Tench, Zak Starkey and Rabbit Bundrick.

The attached transcription is one of those exercises where you take what you think is a simple Rosk ballad but, when you start writing it down/reading it, you begin to realise that there is a lot more going on than you think. Some really interesting approaches to both song form and rhythm section playing. This is the band Foreigner’s biggest hit, ‘I Wanna Know What Love Is’ from the band’s 1984 album, ‘Agent Provocateur’.