Victor Wooten

Victor, known for his solo recordings and tours, and as a member of the Grammy-winning supergroup, Béla Fleck & The Flecktones, has won most every major award given to a bass guitarist. He was voted Bassist of the year by Bass Player Magazine three times and is the only person to have won the award more than once.

 

The youngest sibling of the five amazing Wooten brothers (Regi, Roy, Rudy and Joseph), Victor began playing music very early in life. Growing up in a military family in which his older brothers all played and sang, Victor began his musical journey under the tutelage of his oldest brother Regi. Realizing that the family band would be complete if they had a bass player, ten-year-old Regi began showing two-year-old Victor how to play. By the time he was 3, Victor was performing neighborhood concerts with his brothers in the front yard of their home in Hawaii. At age six, he was touring with his brothers as the opening band for soul legend Curtis Mayfield. After living in Sacramento, CA a few years, the family moved east where the Wooten Brothers continued to hone their skills playing countless clubs and concerts along the east coast.

 

Victor was influenced by bass mentors, Stanley Clarke, Larry Graham and Bootsy Collins, but sites his brothers and parents as his main influences. “In music and in life, my parents and brothers were the foundation. They prepared me for life by giving and teaching me love and honesty. They also taught me to keep my mind open and learn to adapt to life’s ever-changing circumstances. Their guidance has helped me stay grounded today.” By the early ’80s, now living in Newport News, Virginia, the brothers became mainstays at Busch Gardens theme park in nearby Williamsburg.