Ded Astro, founder of the reggae pop group UB40

LONDON, November 07 – The former singer and founding member of British reggae group UB40, best known in the 1980s for songs like Red Wine and Can’t Help Falling In Love, has died at the age of 64, after a short illness. His band made him known. Terence Wilson, better known by his stage name Astro, performed with UB40 until 2013, when he left the band to form another band of the same name due to economic discrepancies. His current band UB40, along with Ali Campbell and Astro, tweeted: “We are devastated and deeply saddened to announce that our beloved Astro has passed away after a short illness.” “The world wouldn’t be the same without it.” His former band confirmed the news, saying that Wilson died after a “brief illness.” The popular reggae cover of Neil Diamond’s UB40 ‘Red Red Wine’ brought him to fame, selling over 100 million records. They also broke the record, on par with madness, for most weeks topping the UK singles chart in the 1980s. Coming from Birmingham, the group rode a wave of youthful discontent at the time by choosing the name of the model to apply for unemployment benefits. Drummer Jimmy Brown told the Guardian this year that the group had been guarded by British intelligence. “MI5 was eavesdropping on our phones and monitoring our homes in different ways,” he said. “We were not planning for the revolution, but if the revolution happened, we knew which side we would take.” (Dealing).
(Ansa)