With one of the most impressive résumés in the history of classic rock, John Wetton served popular music via various paths, either through slightly more obscure progressive and/or jazz-rock bands like Family and Mogul Thrash, through his tenure in some rock giants like King Crimson, Uriah Heep, Wishbone Ash and Roxy Music, through his countless collaborations with celebrated artists such as Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, Phil Manzanera, Steve Hackett, Renaissance and others, through his solo studio and live albums, or through co-founding (with Steve Howe and Geoff Downes of Yes and Carl Palmer of Emerson Lake & Palmer) one of the most popular mainstream rock acts of the eighties, Asia.
Today John Wetton gave in to his battle with colon cancer at age 67, but artists of such enormity never die.
Most of Wetton's aforementioned contributions are quite well known to the public and do not necessarily require further exposure, but one of his first ever ventures as part of the hard/jazz-rock band, Mogul Thrash is worth some further examination. Mogul Thrash was Wetton's previous step before joining Family and eventually King Crimson and featured Colosseum's James Litherland and musicians Michael Rosen, Bill Harrison, Roger Ball and Malcolm Duncan. The band's sole record on RCA, produced by the great Brian Auger, it was released in 1971 and went criminally underrated and ignored. On the back of the album's failure Mogul Thrash disbanded and Wetton went on to bigger and greater things. 46 years later Mogul Thrash's self-titled LP still holds out sounding fresh and vibrant, like most of the stuff Wetton had been a part of.
Listen below...
ZR