Photo: Andy Newcombe · CC BY 2.0 · credits
Tier 3 · vertical & regional
Bill Wells
Person · male · United Kingdom · Falkirk · born 1963
British jazz musician
Timeline
1 events◦ Birth 1
1960s
Biography
English biography168 words · 2 sectionssource: wikipedia-en · licence CC BY-SA 4.0 · revision 1372411416
Biography
Bill Wells (born c. 1963) is a Scottish bassist, pianist, guitarist and composer.
Biography
Wells is completely self-taught, and began performing in clubs in Scotland in the late 1980s. He began arranging his own work and initially offered these to Bobby Wishart, but when Wishart declined the offer, Wells formed his own Bill Wells Octet, which has included Lindsay Cooper, Alastair Morrow, Robert Henderson, John Longbotham, Phil and Tom Bancroft. Wells' style of experimental jazz takes influences from Brian Wilson, Burt Bacharach, Gil Evans, and Charles Mingus.
Wells has collaborated with several prominent Scottish independent rock and pop musicians, including with David Keenan of Telstar Ponies and John Hogarty of BMX Bandits in the group Phantom Engineer, and with Stevie Jackson and Isobel Campbell of Belle & Sebastian in live performances and also in the studio; Wells recorded the Ghost of Yesterday album with Campbell, and Jackson played on Wells' Incorrect Practice album.
During 2006 he received a Scottish Arts Council 'Tune Up' commission for a tour of Scotland.
Discography & profile
Normalised profile
Percentiles are computed over every artist in the database, so a tier-3 artist can still sit in the 95th percentile on a single axis.
| Metric | Value | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia language versions | 4 | 24.3th |
| Spotify monthly listeners | — | no data |
| Release groups in DB | 0 | 0th |
| Studio albums | 0 | 0th |
| Awards recorded | 0 | 0th |
| Timeline events | 1 | 40.6th |
| Recording span (years) | — | no data |
| Genres | 1 | 56th |
Percentiles are computed at render time; missing values mean the artist has no data on that axis.
Discography (0 release groups)
No discography rows stored yet
MusicBrainz enrichment for this artist is still pending. Release groups appear here once it runs.
Stats & PK
Percentile within all 23,672 published artists.Put Bill Wells head-to-head →
| Metric | Value | Percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia language versions | 4 | 24.3th |
| Spotify monthly listeners | — | no data |
| Release groups in DB | 0 | 0th |
| Studio albums | 0 | 0th |
| Awards recorded | 0 | 0th |
| Timeline events | 1 | 40.6th |
| Recording span (years) | — | no data |
| Genres | 1 | 56th |
Awards & honours
Where this record comes from
portrait—Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0 · retrieved 11 October 2026
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bassist_Bill_Wells.jpgcore—wikidata · CC0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4911322genre—wikidata · CC0 · retrieved 11 October 2026
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4911322seed-list—wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Wells_%28musician%29biography—wikipedia-en · CC BY-SA 4.0 · retrieved 10 October 2026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Wells_%28musician%29
Why this artist is in the database
- List of Scottish musicians
Tier rule: curated genre/region list
Image: Andy Newcombe · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Wikidata: Q4911322 · MusicBrainz: 9e9d0abd-bd10-4c48-9886-224d34c7ed84
Similar artists
Browse every Tier 3 artist →Ranked from this record's own data: shared genre tags (rarer tags weigh more), era, home country and comparable fame. Every card lists the signals that placed it — no editorial picks.
Beverley Knight
United Kingdom · Person
jazz
1 shared genre tag · debut 1995 · from United Kingdom
16 wikis
Aynsley Dunbar
United Kingdom · Person
jazz
1 shared genre tag · debut 1971 · from United Kingdom
22 wikis
David Knopfler
United Kingdom · Person
jazz
1 shared genre tag · debut 1983 · from United Kingdom
26 wikis
Bill Bruford
United Kingdom · Person
jazz
1 shared genre tag · debut 1983 · from United Kingdom
30 wikis
Andy Summers
United Kingdom · Person
jazz
1 shared genre tag · debut 1984 · from United Kingdom
31 wikis
Charlie Watts
United Kingdom · Person
jazz
1 shared genre tag · debut 1986 · from United Kingdom
55 wikis
Richard Wright
United Kingdom · Person
jazz
1 shared genre tag · debut 1978 · from United Kingdom
56 wikis
Maysa Leak
United States · Person
jazz
1 shared genre tag · debut 1995
4 wikis