Two Decades In Rock Box Set
Two Decades In Rock Box Set
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Rarities From The Bronze Age
The Collection
Especially when he saw some of the reviews they were getting. For years, Uriah Heep were the ' band everyone - except the fans - just loved to hate. They were slammed as 'a poor man's Deep Purple' due to the relentlessly heavy guitar/Hammond organ driven rockers... 'if this band makes it, I'll have to commit suicide', promised another unimpressed hack ... Uriah Heep heard it all.
But they were too damn stubborn to pay any mind to the critics. Instead they took their cue from the smiling faces crammed against the stages, took solace from the consistent - if unspectacular - record sales and just kept on rockin'.
They were every bit as 'umble as Charles Dickins' simpering clerk who unwittingly gave them their name, but they were more stubborn than a stable full of proverbial mules. They refused to give up no matter what happened, enduring their share of personnel changes, upheavels, and even tragedies to play concerts and become a 'name' act in just about every country in the world - from Iceland to Australia, from the USA to the Soviet Union. Just take a look around: it's 1989 and the band are still with us! They have beaten all the odds and survived.
This compilation - a mere scratch on the surface of their 19-studio album, five frontmen career - couldn't hope to be a comprehensive resume of all the band have done and are capable of. But listen to it and hear most of the classics - Gypsy, Easy Livin, Return To Fantasy, July Morning... they're all here, along with a few goodies time has overlooked, and maybe even a few surprises.
Not least for all those who said the band would never last...
Echoes In The Dark
Heep had something a lot of critics couldn't or wouldn't hear. The fans did though. Their album Uriah Heep Live went gold on both sides of the Atlantic because Uriah Heep live were a phenomenon. They delivered: they took pains to deliver; they delivered on record and on stage and the fans knew and the critics didn't. What Heep were really about was music, not outsiders' attitudes, and their music is truly interesting - its roots, its influences, its effect. Heep were formed at the beginning of the '70s, a time when 'pop' was becoming a teeny-tainted dirty word, and 'rock' (without the 'roll') was the correctly cred path of musical righteousness. As all the '60s bubbles got burst, the progressive spirit of pop reincarnated itself in rock: heavier (as in "heavy with significance", louder, weightier, more self-consciously experimental, performance music for the stoned. Heep filled the bill. For a few years they became one of the dozen top rock bands.
Secretly though, their roots, like those of contemporaries Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, did lay in the '60s, in the acid experiments of '67 and later. Said Heep drummer Keith Baker in 1970 "It all started with the hippie thing in 1967. Although flower-power got played out by the press in a matter of weeks, all the energy it created is still there, only now it's not talked about."
Heep's genealogy can be traced back to the Stalkers, a late '60s group featuring Londoner Mick Box (b.8 June ‘47) on guitar, and Essex-born vocalist David Byron (b.29 Jan. '47). They metamorphosed into Spice who excited the enthusiasm of music mogul Gerry Bron, producer, publisher, manager, Bron persuaded them to take on multi-talented Ken Hensley (b.24 Aug. '45), keyboard player, guitarist, songwriter, and formerly in seminal progressive rockers The Gods with Greg Lake, Mick Taylor and bassist Paul Newton. Newton joined Hensley, Alex Napier was brought in on drums, and the new band got an old name - that of the unctuous Dickens Character from David Copperfield.
That line-up cut Heep's debut LP Very 'eavy, Very 'umble for Bron's Bronze label; it contained Gypsy an all-time Heep favourite that became a blueprint for at least one facet of their style. With their breathtaking keyboard-guitar front-line interplay topped by Byron's swooping vocal lines and high-register harmonies (prompting one commentator to dub them "the Beach Boys of Heavy Metal"). Heep proved in one fell swoop their musicianship and versatility (it contains one non-original track, the atmospheric postapocalyptic ballad Come Away Melinda) but at the same time it branded them.
"The 'heavy' image is a drag because it creates an interest among the sort of people that aren't really our type of audience," explained David Byron in 1971. "If anybody listens to us expecting something on the lines of Black Sabbath they're going to be really disappointed. Likewise, it might drive away a lot of people who would otherwise dig us. Heavy bands are limited to use those basic simple heavy riffs, so they're bound to run out of material or start repeating themselves after not very long. I don't think we've ever been a heavy band in the usual sense of the word. There's always been an effort to get a balance of light and heavy shades."
Like many other rock groups, getting a solid permanent rhythm section was a problem that would plague and almost destroy Uriah Heep. Drummer Napier was replaced by Keith Baker for the band's second album Salisbury. Baker was replaced by Iain Clarke for Look At Yourself late in '71, also featuring the percussion of labelmates Osibisa, and Manfred Mann himself playing synth on the track July Morning. By now, Heep were a world-wide attraction with a huge fan following, and this constant touring led to the departure of bassist Paul Newton and drummer Clarke. Their replacements were New Zealander bassist Gary Thain, ex-Keef Hartley, and drummer Lee Kerslake from the Gods. This was to be Heep's strongest rhythm section. The line-up was now perfect. The LPs Demons and Wizards and Magician's Birthday, two of the earliest sword- and-sorcery albums, both went gold in the UK and the USA and were followed by the majestic Uriah Heep Live, the double-album zenith of their career. Then tragedy struck. In '74 Thain received an electric shock on stage in Dallas and was unable to work. His subsequent personal problems led to delays in recording, touring and to clashes with mentor Bron. Thain was asked to leave in February '75: a month later he was dead of a drugs overdose. From then on - albeit slowly - it was all down-hill.
Cataloguing their decline reveals a morass of what seems like almost insurmountable obstacles. A series of disappointing albums, the break-up of the potent original line-up with only Mick Box left striving to hold the band together. Amazingly, after years in the wilderness, Box succeeded in putting together an '80s Heep line-up that saw the group return to the charts in Britain and America with some fine AOR material. It was a deservedly welcome comeback.
This collection though, is not concerned with declines or comebacks; instead it concentrates on Uriah Heep in their charismatic hey-day; a confident and authorative band exploring the further reaches of rock's possibilities, revelling in their own brilliant musicianship and experimentation, offering us their unique vision.
Downunda
| Side 1 | Side 2 | Side 3 | Side 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Echoes In The Dark | 1. Tears In My Eyes | 1. Easy Livin' | 1. The Wizard |
| 2. High Priestess | 2. Lady In Black | 2. Sunrise | 2. Stealin' |
| 3. What Should Be Done | 3. Come Away Melinda | 3. Traveller In Time | 3. Rain |
| 4. Bird Of Prey | 4. Look At Yourself | 4. Sweet Lorraine | 4. Sweet Freedom |
| 5. Rainbow Demon |
"Hearing songs like 'Gypsy' and 'High Priestess' after so long was a gas but the secret, I think, is in the complete package. The songs all represent stages our music has gone through up until the recent past and whilst some of you will miss your particular 'favourites', the selection, I think, traces our steps in an interesting way."
"It has become, perhaps, tour own 'private' collection of 'Heep Sounds' and we hope, naturally, that you will enjoy it, and those special concerts in November"
"We send all our love, Ken Hensley, October 1974"
Traveller in Time
Original Liner Notes:
2. Come Away Melinda
3. Bird Of Prey
4. I'll Keep On Trying
5. High Priestess
6. The Park
7. Lady In Black
8. Look At Yourself
9. July Morning
10. Tears In My Eyes
11. Love Machine
12. The Wizard
13. Why
14. Traveller In Time
15. Easy Livin'
16. Circle Of Hands
2. Paradise
3. The Spell
4. Sunrise
5. Blind Eye
6. The Magician's Birthday
7. Sweet Lorraine
8. Rain
9. Stealin'
10. Sweet Freedom
11. Wonderworld
12. The Easy Road
13. Return To Fantasy
14. Footprints In The Snow
15. Weep In Silence
This two CD collection represents the best of the band across a nearly 9-year time span and contains all of my personal favourites. It goes deeper into the catalogue than previous compilations and I think it’s more complete because of that.
There’s too much material here for me to comment on every song but I am happy to share some of my memories with you. It’s not hard for me to "flash back" to some of these moments and I hope this will, in a sense "put you there" and enable you to share the journey.
As I listened to the tracks at my studio in St. Louis, it occurred to me that the earliest recordings were done on 8-track machines at Lansdowne Studios and, over the years, we enjoyed all the progress that recording technology made available. Nevertheless, the earlier recordings have a certain "magic" to them and you can hear the excitement of a band that was beginning a long journey into Rock & Roll history.
Gypsy came from a rehearsal and was really the first collaboration between the guys who were ‘Spice’ and myself. On hearing this song, Gerry Bron made the decision to re-name the band and Uriah Heep was born. It was also a song that became an "anthem" at European festivals in the early 70s and one which never left our live repertoire.
Come Away Melinda was and still is a great song and is a great reminder of David’s ability to interpret lyrics in a sensitive and powerful way.
In many of the songs from the first two albums, High Priestess and The Park for example, you can hear the great contrasts in the band’s music and the freedom we had to experiment in those days!
Lady In Black became such a legendary song in Europe and places like South Africa (!) and I am still amazed at the strength of a song with two chords (Am & G) and a chorus with no words in it!
Look At Yourself was a very significant album for Heep as it launched the band in America which was (and still is) the biggest record market in the world. The album contained many songs which went on to become classics and July Morning (a song I still like to play) is definitely one of those. By the way, I don’t know if you know that the cover of Look At Yourself, with the Mirror and the eyes, was Mick Box’s idea, hatched in the back seat of our car on the way back from a gig in the north of England!
I still believe that Demons & Wizards was the best musical time of Heep’s career, at least as far as the 70’s are concerned and The Wizard is a great reminder of that. It’s a song that still gets plenty of airplay on classic rock radio in America and another song that I love to play live. Our biggest world-wide hit Easy Livin still gets played a lot too and was a song that was if partially written in the back of a taxi, on the way home from gruelling days in the studio. Life in a headlining rock band was a lot of fun but it certainly wasn’t easy!
Circle Of Hands, which closes the first CD, was inspired by a very silly seance I went to in Santa Margharita, Italy but I think it’s still a powerful Heep song.
CD 2 begins with two more songs from Demons & Wizards and I am so happy that we were able to include Paradise/The Spell as (in my opinion) it’s a timeless high point in the band’s music.
The Magician’s Birthday was a little hurried as a follow up to Demons & Wizards but we have included the stronger moments from the record. To be honest, I was a little surprised that Blind Eye didn’t become a hit single… it’s still one of my personal favourite songs.
Of course, Sweet Lorraine became a "signature" song for the band both on record and in our live shows and it’s a nice reminder of Gary’s rare writing contributions. I really missed Gary after he was gone from the band.
Rain is another favourite of mine and was written during a dinner break from recording the album. As we went to leave the building, it was pouring with rain and I decided to stay and mess around on the piano. The song starts with a simple reflection of what I had just seen and was finished by the time the guys got back from dinner. We recorded it immediately and the rest is history. Stealin became a big song for us, especially in America and it, too, still receives a lot of airplay.
Moving toward the end of the "Byron Years" we hear David at his best on Sweet Freedom, Wonderworld and The Easy Road. These were very difficult time for us but I think we still managed to get "focused" in the studio. I wasn’t really happy with recording outside of England though… I was too used to my own pillow!
Finally (and appropriately in my opinion) we end the compilation with two song from High And Mighty, which is still one of my favourite albums. It wasn’t a "typical" Heep album and was largely ignored in a commercial sense but that has never bothered me too much. On reflection, it was a bit like making a solo record with the band! Footprints In The Snow and Weep In Silence remain as two of my favourite songs and I think they are two of the best songs I have written so I am very happy that they have been included.
So that’s a little "walk through the past" as I saw it and I hope this will help you to enjoy what I think is the best collection of Heep music that has been put together!
With best wishes, God bless, -Ken Hensley
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Content Copyright © 1997-99 Jay Pearson
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