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 and bluegrass quartet

Béla Fleck and the Flecktones Béla may refer to: * Béla (crater), an elongated lunar crater * Béla (given name), a common Hungarian male given name See also * Bela (disambiguation) * Belá (disambiguation) * Bělá (disambiguation) Bělá, derived from ''bílá'' (''whit ...

, along with

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

ist Béla Fleck, harmonicist Howard Levy, and Roy's brother, electric bass

virtuoso A virtuoso (from Italian ''virtuoso'' or , "virtuous", Late Latin ''virtuosus'', Latin ''virtus'', "virtue", "excellence" or "skill") is an individual who possesses outstanding talent and technical ability in a particular art or field such as ...

Victor Wooten. His primary instrument is the SynthAxeDrumitar, a guitar synthesizer he has customized to play drum and percussion sounds, but he also 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 in the U.S. state of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 186,247. Located in the Hampton Roads region, it is the 5th most populous city in Virginia and 140th most populous city in the Uni ...

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 is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

, 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 Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James River, James, Nansemond River, Nansemond and Elizabeth River (Virginia), Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's ...

area of southeast Virginia during the 1970s. Wooten is a six-time Grammy Award-winning performer with

. 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 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 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 distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

with jazz elements, especially

improvisation Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...

, and spoken word. Among extra-musical influences, Wooten describes Pythagorean

numerology Numerology (also known as arithmancy) is the belief in an occult, divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value, via an alphanumeric system, of the letters in ...

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