Victor Wooten

Victor Lemonte Wooten (born September 11, 1964) is an American bassist, songwriter, and record producer. He has been the bassist for Béla Fleck and the Flecktones since the group’s formation in 1988 and a member of the band SMV with two other bassists, Stanley Clarke and Marcus Miller. From 2017 to 2019 he recorded as the bassist for the metal band Nitro.

He owns Vix Records, which releases his albums. He wrote the novel The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music. He later released the book’s sequel, The Spirit of Music: The Lesson Continues, on February 2, 2021.

Wooten is the recipient of five Grammy Awards. He won the Bass Player of the Year award from Bass Player magazine three times and is the first person to win the award more than once. In 2011, he was ranked No. 10 in the Top 10 Bassists of All Time by Rolling Stone magazine.

In 2018–2019 Wooten was diagnosed with a rare neurological condition called focal dystonia in his hands and upper body, which had been limiting his ability to play in previous years, but has since abated somewhat.

Born to Dorothy and Elijah Wooten, Victor is the youngest of the five Wooten brothers; Regi, Roy, Rudy, and Joseph Wooten are all musicians. Regi began to teach Victor to play bass when he was two, and by the age of six, he was performing with his brothers in their family band, The Wooten Brothers Band. As a United States Air Force family, they moved often when Wooten was young. The family settled in Newport News, Virginia, in 1972. Wooten graduated from Denbigh High School in 1982.

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