Hot Chocolate Co-Founder Tony Wilson Dies at 89

Tony Wilson, the bassist who helped launch one of Britain's most enduring soul bands, has died at 89 at his home in Trinidad, his family announced. "Dad left us today," his daughter wrote on Facebook on Friday. "He left a lot of music behind... forever and ever. The peace that I have is knowing that his soul escaped. He is in and at peace." A co-founder of Hot Chocolate alongside singer Errol Brown, Wilson co-wrote signature hits including "You Sexy Thing" and "Emma," songs that powered the group through a 15-year run of UK hits from 1970 to 1984 and made them one of the first predominantly Black British bands to break through in the US.

Born in Trinidad, Wilson played in several groups before forming Hot Chocolate in the late 1960s, reports the BBC. The band's big break came after they sent a reggae take on John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" to the Beatle, who backed them and helped secure a deal. Wilson left the group in the mid-1970s to pursue a solo career, releasing two albums and the forward-looking single "Hangin' Out in Space" before stepping back from recording by the late 1980s. His son, Danny, wrote in his tribute of finding his father's old diaries, notes the Independent. "It is truly staggering. The knockbacks, the interviews, the touring, the radio shows, the meticulous documenting of record sales. All the pressures of what was a cutthroat music industry in the Seventies. It's all in those diaries."