John Wetton and his controversial career

A musician we don't talk much about, with a possibly controversial career for Prog fans, from his stellar performances with King Crimson to the blandest AOR of Asia's worst periods, then recently reviving U.K. with Eddy Jobson again showing great Prog skills. Gifted with a great voice, competent bass player, good composer, able to compose and play Prog like few others but for a long period in his career he chose to try a more commercial path.

I always cherished Wetton, he has remained a consistently excellent player with many bands (let's not forget Roxy Music, Uriah Heep, Wishbone Ash etc.)

I love John Wetton to bits. He did some great solo gigs around 11 or 12 years ago with performances of stuff from all his old bands, which were captured on two great DVDs. Superb live band he had too - John Mitchell, Martin Orford and Steve Christey. This particular vid is from a compilation DVD, but was originally filmed at a warm-up gig for his 2003 tour which was staged at The Underworld in Camden, London - & released as John Wetton Live In The Underworld. The other DVD was recorded in Poland during the tour proper the same year, & was called Amorata.

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool binge drinker, so I don't hold alcoholism against him. He's one of my favourite bassists, plays like an absolute gun, and he's got a great voice. I'm not against those taking a commercial turn in their career, and ask anyone if they've heard of Phil Collins - of course they have, ask about John Wetton and you get a " who's he ? "........
The earliest example of Wetton I have on record is his contribution to Gordon Haskell's It Is And It Isn't from 1971 - Wetton drives his songs with such intricate and melodic lines Gordon never could (even though he was fine on KC's Lizard album).

Edited by Tom Ozric - January 30 2015 at 18:52

I love the music he did with KC, but I always thought the weak link in that line-up was Wetton's vocals (not his bass, which is awsome). However, somehow his vocals never bothered me with Asia (there it was mostly the music, which isn't so great, except for a few good songs)... still, somehow when I have heard Asia's live albums, once again I rather dislike his vocals. However, once again, I've heard some songs originally from Greg Lake (whom I consider a much stronger vocalist) sung by Wetton (both with Asia and with Steve Hackett), and I really liked how those ones came out (also, I liked very much how he sang some Genesis songs with Hackett). Then, I got some UK, and there I feel he totally ruined the music for me (unlike with KC, with whom I didn't really like his vocals, but the music was still great).

and with Roxy in 76..? before UK....Wetton and Jobson get fired up  at the end of the song.

I don't see what's controversial about his career. Being a part of Asia ain't controversial. Or I wouldn't call it that.
The whole Asia reunion thing was lame and I could not understand how all of a sudden, Downes gave up on Payne after their long collaboration. it felt like a cash grab. All their albums since reunion are just inferior to the Payne era albums, not to mention their 80s stuff.

Hi ,my name is Richard and I like Asia ( even XXX).

I never took much notice of his bass playing (if any), but he's my favorite singer together with Greg Lake, and I like his song writing.

It would be so nice if some people stopped thinking that choosing to play more commercial music is tantamount to high treason. While I have never been a fan of Asia, I do enjoy some good AOR songs - definitely much more so than a lot of bad, formulaic prog - and gave Wetton's 2011 album Raised in Captivity a very positive rating and review when I was writing for DPRP. As others have stated here, there's absolutely nothing "controversial" about his career. Even if he wanted to make more money, he did so by playing music many people enjoy - not by selling drugs, weapons or human beings.