Bassist and singer with Hot Chocolate who co-wrote some of their biggest hits, including You Sexy Thing
The best known member of the band Hot Chocolate was their frontman Errol Brown, but in the engine room, co-writing their hit songs and playing bass, was Tony Wilson.
Wilson, who has died aged 89, set up Hot Chocolate with Brown in London in 1968, and had writing credits with Brown on You Sexy Thing, Love is Life, Brother Louie and Emma, all Top 10 UK singles in the early 1970s. With and without Brown, he also wrote various tracks for their first three albums.
The pair had met in the late 60s as young men, having both arrived in the UK from the Caribbean several years before – Wilson from Trinidad and Brown from Jamaica. Brown was still new to the songwriting game but Wilson, older by seven years and far more experienced, encouraged the younger man to develop his talent.
Their subsequent collaborations produced a string of soulful pop tunes that made Hot Chocolate into one of the most successful British singles bands of the 70s, beginning with Love is Life in 1970 and peaking with You Sexy Thing in 1975, which made it to No 2 and became a marker of their enduring popularity by featuring in the Top 10 across three different decades.
