Victor Wooten picked up the bass at the age
of 3 and never looked back.
“Back then, it was a chance to be like
my brothers,” Wooten says. “All my brothers were
playing, and this was an opportunity for me to do what they were
doing. Here was my chance to belong.”
Wooten’s four brothers were members of
the Wooten Brothers Band, with which Victor cut his chops on the
bass, performing at age 5 as part of the opening act for such
artists as Curtis Mayfield and War. Later, Wooten moved to
Nashville, but his brothers were never too far away. After meeting
first-rate banjo player Béla Fleck, Victor and brother Roy
(“Futureman”) and keyboardist Howard Levy rounded out
the original lineup of the Flecktones, a Grammy-winning jazz combo.
Wooten’s current tour, “Soul
Circus,” rides on the back of his first solo album, also
named Soul Circus, in four years. The album’s sound is a departure
from the jazz-free jams fans are accustomed to hearing from Wooten
in the Flecktones’ ensemble.
“I wanted to expand my listening
audience without losing the jazz audience. Music is bigger than
jazz, and I was hoping to be able to make a record that was played
on the radio,” Wooten says.
The result: the same mesmerizingly fast thumb
licks and funky bass lines with the soul sensibility of yesteryear
legends such as Sly and the Family Stone. Soul Circus plays like
a tribute to bass legends and Wooten’s worthy contemporaries.
Prodigies such as Bootsy Collins and Rhonda Smith (of Prince fame) pack the album with powerful
bass on every track.
Wooten’s live show this time around
lives up to the “circus” part of its moniker with the
promise of lights, stage sets, decorations, and seven or eight
musicians onstage at a time.
“It’s the biggest production
I’ve done on my own,” Wooten says.
Listeners will hear much more in the way of
vocals than they do at a Béla Fleck and the Flecktones show.
The new songs are more like party songs, more danceable, Wooten
says. Another highlight is the reunion of the Wooten brothers
onstage. It’s been years since all five have toured together,
Wooten says.
Wooten was voted Bass Player of the Year
three times by Bass Player magazine, and he’s won the award for
Bassist of the Year twice in the Nashville Music Awards.
When he’s not pounding out bass lines,
Wooten is indulging his passion for nature. This August he plans to
host Funk Fest (the “Funk” stands for Friends uv Nature
and Knowledge) in Indiana, an idea that grew out of his Victor
Wooten Bass/Nature Camps.
Victor Wooten and Soul Circus perform at 8
p.m. Friday, July 1, at the Hoogland Center for the Arts. Tickets
cost $25.50. For more information, call 217-523-2787.
This article appears in Jun 30 – Jul 6, 2005.
