An Early Love of Music

Wayman Tisdale was born on June 9, 1964, in Ft. Worth, Texas, and moved at a young age with his family to Tulsa, Oklahoma. The youngest of six children, Tisdale was greatly influenced by his father, Pastor Louis L. Tisdale, who taught him the importance of community, family, and loving others.

It was also his father who gifted Tisdale his first bass guitar at the age of eight, hopeful that one of his children would take an interest in the instrument. Able to play by ear, the left-handed Tisdale never received any formal music education. Instead, he taught himself to play the right-handed bass upside down. He would go on to play every Sunday at his father's church, even into his college years.