NEW YORK, Feb 1 — John Wetton, an in-demand bassist for 1970s rock acts whose Heat of the Moment song with the band Asia became a surprise hit, died yesterday.
He was 67.
Wetton, who had been sober for more than a decade after a long struggle with alcoholism, died in his sleep from colon cancer complications, his management said in a statement.
Wetton had remarried just two months earlier and had been due to return to the road with Asia in March in a North American tour with stadium rock favourites Journey.
“John was a gentle person who created some of the most lasting melodies and lyrics in modern popular music,” Asia percussionist Carl Palmer said in a statement.
Raised in the southern English town of Bournemouth, Wetton became a skilled bassist with smaller bands when he was chosen to join King Crimson, which had developed a name as a leader of progressive rock, a genre that embraced more complicated musical structure.
He went on to join a number of prominent bands including Bryan Ferry’s glam outfit Roxy Music and the heavier Uriah Heep.
He found his greatest success with Asia, a supergroup with veterans of progressive rock bands.
Heat of the Moment, which he wrote and sang, was the final track recorded for the band’s 1982 debut album and the record label initially thought little of it.
But boosted by newly created MTV, the song soared to number one on the US chart and became an enduring hit, led by a catchy chorus that was more user-friendly than much of Wetton’s diverse work.
“It took everyone by surprise and nobody was prepared for how successful it was going to be, including the record company,” he later told the blog Classic Rock Revisited.
His last album, Asia’s Gravitas, came out in 2014 and closed with the line, “Think the best of me, till we meet again.” — AFP
