{"id":780862,"date":"2026-09-24T08:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T08:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/780862\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T08:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T08:22:12","slug":"the-pop-singer-who-very-nearly-sang-for-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/780862\/","title":{"rendered":"The pop singer who very nearly sang for Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Promotional<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Universal Music Operations<\/p>\n

Thu 24 September 2026 2:30, UK <\/p>\n

Prog<\/a> didn\u2019t quite die, whatever punk lore will have you believe, but it did have to adapt to the rapidly shifting pop climate.<\/p>\n

Case in point was Asia. The early 1980s supergroup comprised a hotchpotch of prog rock casualties, left adrift as their former bands\u2019 wizardry nosedived in critical esteem. Seeking solidarity, Asia pulled in some of the biggest names of the whole progressive era, counting Emerson, Lake & Palmer\u2019s drummer Carl Palmer, King Crimson\u2019s John Wetton, long-serving Yes guitarist Steve Howe<\/a>, and Johnny-come-lately Yes member and Buggles man Geoff Downes.<\/p>\n

However, there were to be no 20-minute extravaganzas occupying an entire side of a record, nor conceptual arcs telling some grand narrative tale to the interest of the band and few others. Asia were to follow the lead of the day\u2019s Toto, REO Speedwagon and Styx, former proggers who sailed into the 1980s charts by shaking off elongated jams in favour of soft rock gloss.<\/p>\n

It worked; such a stylistic embrace would see 1982\u2019s eponymous debut and the Alpha follow-up crack the top ten over in the States. Yet, while the group\u2019s line-up was still being settled, other options for lead singer were considered before confirming Wetton\u2019s role behind the mic. One was Trevor Rabin, the South African guitarist and songwriter who\u2019d formed Cinema with ex-Yes members Chris Squire and Alan White, and was largely responsible for Yes\u2019s later \u2018Owner of a Lonely Heart\u2019 smash.<\/p>\n

Yet, Rabin didn\u2019t quite make the cut. It was Palmer who suggested an altogether left-field turn, the former hitmaker Roy Wood<\/a>. The fellow Brummie came from respectable pop pedigree, having fronted The Move back in the 1960s, co-founding Electric Light Orchestra with Jeff Lynne not long after, then captaining the Wizzard glam outfit responsible for the \u2018I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday\u2019 festive smash.<\/p>\n

The rest of the band agreed that Wood had the songwriting credentials, Wood counting 15 UK top tens, but his flamboyant wardrobe and eccentric character threatened to be too much for the band\u2019s desire to pursue a more middle-of-the-road path to commercial success.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got hold of Woody\u2019s number, and he came to see us,\u201d Palmer reflected to MusicRadar. \u201cHe had his silver shoes on, and his tights, and his red jacket, and his hair all over the place, and his round glasses. And he kept saying to Steve Howe, \u2018Can you play some of that posh guitar?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n

As part of his semi-audition, Wood played a rendition of his long unreleased \u2018Aerial Pictures\u2019, and wowed the Asia collective with his musical prowess. But the vibe was off. Everybody loved him, but knew he just couldn\u2019t travel the road Asia were heading down. \u201cThere was nothing wrong with his credentials,\u201d Palmer added. \u201cIt was just that the connection was missing. When you\u2019re a musician, it doesn\u2019t matter how good somebody is. It either works or it doesn\u2019t, and in Woody\u2019s case it didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Wood may have been hurt by the rejection, Asia more than managed, with Wetton stepping up to frontman duties, launching their debut in 1982. It stayed at the top of the Billboard 200 for a staggering nine weeks in a row, that year\u2019s best-selling album in the States.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Universal Music Operations Thu 24 September 2026 2:30, UK Prog didn\u2019t quite die, whatever…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[30275,208348,1487,96,128,119283,218684,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-780862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1980s","tag-208348","tag-asia","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-prog","tag-soft-rock","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}