Victor Wooten facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Victor Wooten
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Wooten plays his headless bass guitar known as his "Sitar Bass" at the Belly Up in San Diego 2006
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Victor Lemonte Wooten |
| Born | September 11, 1964 Mountain Home, Idaho, U.S. |
| Genres |
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| Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter, record producer |
| Instruments | Bass guitar |
| Years active | 1980–present |
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Victor Lemonte Wooten (born September 11, 1964) is an American musician. He is famous for playing the bass guitar. Victor is also a talented songwriter and record producer.
He has been the bassist for the band Béla Fleck and the Flecktones since 1988. He was also part of the band SMV with two other amazing bass players, Stanley Clarke and Marcus Miller. From 2017 to 2019, he played bass for the metal band Nitro.
Victor Wooten owns his own record company called Vix Records. This company releases his music albums. He also wrote a book called The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music. Later, he released a second book, The Spirit of Music: The Lesson Continues, in 2021.
Victor has won five Grammy Awards, which are very important music awards. He also won the "Bass Player of the Year" award from Bass Player magazine three times. He was the first person to win this award more than once! In 2011, readers of Rolling Stone magazine voted him as one of the top 10 bassists of all time.
Around 2018–2019, Victor was diagnosed with a rare condition called focal dystonia. This condition affected his hands and upper body, making it hard to play. Luckily, it has gotten better since then.
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Victor Wooten's Early Life and Music Journey
Victor Wooten was born to Dorothy and Elijah Wooten. He is the youngest of five brothers. All his brothers, Regi, Roy, Rudy, and Joseph Wooten, are also musicians. Regi started teaching Victor to play bass when Victor was only two years old!
By the time he was six, Victor was already performing with his brothers. Their family band was called The Wooten Brothers Band. Because his father was in the United States Air Force, Victor's family moved around a lot when he was young. In 1972, they settled in Newport News, Virginia.
Victor graduated from Denbigh High School in 1982. During high school, he and his brothers played country music at the Busch Gardens theme park in Williamsburg, Virginia. In 1987, he visited friends he had made at the theme park in Nashville, Tennessee. One friend, a studio engineer, introduced him to Béla Fleck. Victor and Béla have worked together many times since then.
In 2000, Victor Wooten started a special music program called Bass/Nature camp. This program grew into Victor Wooten's Center for Music and Nature. It now teaches all kinds of instruments, not just bass. His camps are held at Wooten Woods, a large 147-acre place in Only, Tennessee, near Nashville.
Victor also helps lead the "Victor Wooten/Berklee Summer Bass Workshop" at Berklee College of Music in Boston. At Berklee and his own camps, he teaches alongside Steve Bailey, who is the head of the Berklee Bass Department. These two bassists have been teaching together since the early 1990s. Victor was even featured on the cover of Making Music Magazine in 2014 to talk about his camps.
Victor Wooten's Instruments
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Victor Wooten often plays Fodera basses. He even has a special Fodera bass model named after him. His most famous Fodera bass is a 1983 Monarch Deluxe, which he calls "number 1." This bass has a special part called a Kahler Tremolo System model 2400 bridge. This bridge allows him to bend notes and create unique sounds.
Fodera also makes "Yin Yang" basses for Victor. These basses have the Yin Yang symbol built into their design. The symbol is made from two different types of wood, like Ebony and Holly, fitted together.
Besides electric bass (both fretted and fretless) and the double bass, Victor also played the cello in high school. He still plays the cello sometimes with the Flecktones. He also played it during his 2012 Sword and Stone/Words and Tones tour.
Victor Wooten's Music Albums
Victor Wooten has released many albums both on his own and with different bands. He has created solo albums like A Show of Hands and Soul Circus. He has also made music with his brothers as "The Wootens."
With Steve Bailey, he released albums as "Bass Extremes." He was also part of "Vital Tech Tones" with Scott Henderson and Steve Smith. With Stanley Clarke and Marcus Miller, he released music as "SMV."
Of course, he has released many albums with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, including Flight of the Cosmic Hippo and Rocket Science. He has also played on albums for many other artists, like Dave Matthews Band and Bootsy Collins.
See also
In Spanish: Victor Wooten para niños
