Roy Wilfred Wooten (born October 13, 1957), also known as RoyEl, best known by his stage name Future Man (also written Futureman and known to fans as Futche), is an American musician, inventor and composer. He is best known as a member of

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

and bluegrass quartet Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, along with banjoist Béla Fleck, harmonicist Howard Levy, and Roy's brother, bassist Victor Wooten. His primary instrument is the SynthAxeDrumitar, a guitar synthesizer he customized to play drum and percussion, but he sometimes plays a standard drum kit and other conventional percussion.

Life and career

Born in Hampton, Virginia, Roy Wooten was raised in a military family and therefore traveled frequently. He is the second of five sons born to Dorothy and Elijah "Pete" Wooten. He graduated from Denbigh High School in

Newport News, Virginia Newport News () is an Independent city (United States), independent city in southeastern Virginia, United States. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 186,247. Located in the Hampton Roads region, it is the List of c ...

in 1975. He briefly attended music classes at Norfolk State University upon graduating from high school, and then embarked on his professional music career. He and his brothers moved to

Nashville Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

, Tennessee in the mid-1980s. All of his brothers are musicians. The oldest, Regi, is a guitarist and teacher in Nashville. Roy Wooten, Regi, and his three younger brothers, Rudy (1959–2010) (saxophone), Joseph (keyboards), and Victor (bass guitar), performed as The Wooten Brothers in numerous musical venues in the Hampton Roads area of southeast Virginia during the 1970s. Wooten is a five-time

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...

-winning performer with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. For the Flecktones, he plays the Drumitar, a novel electronic instrument of his own invention, and occasionally performs vocals as well. More recently, Wooten has developed a new electronic instrument called the RoyEl, which resembles a piano but plays notes not found in the traditional western music scales. This instrument is based on the periodic table of elements and the

golden ratio In mathematics, two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their summation, sum to the larger of the two quantities. Expressed algebraically, for quantities and with , is in a golden ratio to if \fr ...

. In 2005, Wooten pleaded guilty to income tax evasion, after having been indicted on charges in 2001 that he had not filed or paid taxes between 1995 and 1998. He was affiliated with the Washitaw Nation, and before his guilty plea had been judged possibly incapable of assisting in his own defense after filing incomprehensible sovereign citizen paperwork with the court.

Solo work

Like the other members of the Flecktones, Wooten has worked on various solo projects during his time off from the band. On his own Wooten often dresses up as a pirate and uses the pseudonym "RoyEl", also the name he gave to the keyboard instrument he invented. Wooten's solo albums are

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs whe ...

and incorporate diverse musical genres and concepts. On ''Evolution de la Musique'', for example, he infuses

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

with jazz elements, especially

improvisation Improvisation, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen. Improvis ...

, and spoken word. Among extra-musical influences, Wooten describes Pythagorean numerology and Vedic mathematics as influencing his compositions. Wooten's solo works are: *''The Seamless Script'' *''Pi Lullaby'' *''Evolution de la Musique'' *''The Black Mozart Ensemble''

References

External links

Béla Fleck and the Flecktones official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Future Man 1957 births Living people American jazz percussionists American jazz drummers African-American drummers Béla Fleck and the Flecktones members Grammy Award winners Norfolk State University alumni 20th-century American drummers American male drummers 21st-century American drummers Jazz musicians from Virginia American male jazz musicians Sovereign citizen movement individuals Members of the Moorish Science Temple of America Drummers from Virginia

Life and career

Solo work

See also

References

External links