Wyly Bigger plays just about every notable piano in town in his video, “Hello, Is That You?”, from his recently-released album, Broken Telephone.
He tickles the ivories on the spinet at Earnestine & Hazel’s and at Sun Studio, and at the grand pianos at the Peabody Skyway and the Orpheum Theatre, to name a few.
The first piano he ever played, though, was a “just a little Fisher Price kid’s piano,” says Bigger, 26.
A native of Marion, Arkansas, Bigger began picking out songs on the piano by ear when he was three. The little piano was “just a plastic, bright, and colorful thing. It probably had 10 keys on it.”
It belonged to his sister, singer-songwriter Bailey Bigger, but “she didn’t take to it at all. She could care less about it. I kind of took it over.”
Wyly’s parents bought an old piano that their church wasn’t using and put Wyly in piano lessons.
He began taking Suzuki-method piano lessons when he was 4 at the University of Memphis. “I wasn’t a huge fan of it. Just because I wanted to play by ear and I wanted to do more. Even from a long time ago I loved Elvis and Jerry Lee. That kind of music.”
Wyly even adopted the Elvis look. “For Halloween in first grade I was Elvis. My grandma sewed me a gold suit to wear like Elvis.”
He also began wearing gel in his hair. “I think we even got some temporary black hair dye from the party store to make it really look like Elvis.”
His next teacher made him learn music, but he also encouraged him to play by ear.
Wyly’s first public performance was playing rock-and-roll on his keyboard at Big John’s Shake Shack (now Tacker’s Shake Shop) in Marion when he was 9 years old. He continued to play there every other week when he was in high school.
He began writing instrumentals when he was about 14. “South Side of Southern,” which was “about growing up in Marion,” was his first song with lyrics.
Wyly didn’t want to sing at first. “I was terrified to sing. I didn’t like it at all.”
His piano teacher encouraged him to start singing along while he played piano during lessons.“I kind of ripped the Band-Aid off.”
Wyly majored in marketing at Mississippi State University, but he continued to play piano at night at local watering holes.
After he graduated, Wyly went to work for a marketing agency and, later, at Marion’s Sultana Disaster Museum.
But he continued to play music in public. Last July, he decided to quit his job and do nothing but music.
He began playing piano in the lobby at the Peabody, where he still plays on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. “The Peabody is a lot of everything. Outside of rock-and-roll and ’50s soul and R&B stuff, I also really love the old jazz standards. Like Cole Porter and George Gershwin-type songs.”
In 2020, Wyly recorded a self-titled EP of his songs. “Back in Love” — “just a story of unrequited love.” — got the most streams.
He describes the EP, which he and Bailey produced, as a “rock-and-roll Fats Domino-swing-type of thing. I had drums, bass, keys, guitar, and sax.” He recorded the EP at Memphis Magnetic Recording Co. with Scott McEwen doing the engineering and mixing.
Bailey, who sang background vocals on the EP, performed with Wyly on occasion back in the day at their church and at the Shake Shack. They’re both on the Madjack Records label.
He began recording his new album in May of 2023. “It took a while just ’cause we hired a team of musicians and we had to work around their schedules.”
The album features Danny Banks on drums, Jim Spake on saxophone, Mark Edgar Stuart (who produced the album) on bass, and Matt Ross-Spang on guitar.
The idea to have Wyly playing pianos all over Memphis “was all Landon Moore. He filmed, directed, and edited the whole video. He’s a bass player in town. He plays with Cyrena Wages and Marcella [Simien].”
One of Wyly’s favorite pianos is the grand piano at the Peabody Skyway. “I love to play that piano and picture myself up in one of the live big band dances they had back in the ’40s.”
He knocked all those piano pedals while wearing his black-and-white Royal Wind spectator shoes. “I bought those things at a thrift store in Starkville when I was in college”
And, he says, “I tell you, they’re a conversation piece. I can’t wear them without somebody saying, ‘Man, where did you get those shoes? Those are amazing.’”
Wyly likes to wear the shoes at the Peabody. “It will turn heads and maybe get me tips. Anytime I dress up, I’m typically going to wear those.”
To view the “Hello, Is That You?” music video, go to tinyurl.com/yckwu33k. Wyly Bigger will perform Friday, May 31st,
7 p.m., at Hernando’s Hideaway.
Adrian Berryhill 