8th October 2022
The Sage, Gateshead
This tour was originally scheduled for 2020 in celebration of 50 Years of Uriah Heep but, of course, Bastard COVID intervened shoving things back two years.
Uriah Heep these days consists of only one founder member, guitarist Mick box although, to be fair, current vocalist Bernie Shaw and keyboard player Phil Lanzon have been around since 1986 - a darned sight longer than many members of the so-called "classic" line-up lasted.
The New Boys these days are drummer Russel Gilbrook, who replaced Lee Kerslake in 2007, and bassist Dave Rimmer (2013).
The band chose to play two sets this evening: the first a short 45 minute acoustic based one, followed by a conventional (i.e. more noisy) second. And I rather enjoyed this format, for it allowed the band to devote a bit of the time to the more introspective side to their output. Consequently we got to hear songs like Circus, Tales, as well as a wonderful three song medley from the Demons and Wizards album.
Bernie Shaw didn't quite bring David Byron's sensitivity to Come Away Melinda, but he made a fair fist of Free Me, and I thought the acoustic arrangement of this latter worked rather well. I could happily have seen Lady in Black far enough though, for I never understood the appeal of this one to anyone.
The post interval set was mostly a disappointingly routine run through of a number of the band's better known rockers, padded out by a selection of disposable ditties from the band's post 1980 output. Although, I did rather enjoy Too Scared to Run. And the Sunrise, Sweet Lorraine, Free 'n' Easy section was great fun.
But the interminable July Morning did for me, and I left before the encores - which is most unlike me.
Set List
Circus
Tales
Free Me
Come Away Melinda
Confession / Rain
The Wizard / Paradise / Circle of Hands
Lady in Black
Interval
Against The Odds
The Hanging Tree
Traveller in Time
Between Two Worlds
Stealin'
Too Scared to Run
Rainbow Demon
What Kind of God
Sunrise
Sweet Lorraine
Free 'n' Easy
July Morning
Encore
Gypsy
Easy Livin'
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| The iconic Tyne Bridge - I have been crossing this bridge all my life. |
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| The Sage, Gateshead |
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| Some, (I assume) Superfan had brought all his memorabilia for folks to gawp at. He has been a busy boy, over the years. |
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| A number of rock celebs sent their good wishes via video footage. |
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| Uriah Heep opened with an acoustic set. |
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| Russell Gilbrook |
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| Phil Lanzon |
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| Bernie Shaw |
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| Mick Box |
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| Uriah Heep - Gateshead 2022 |
I was pleased that Mick Box had a few kind words to say about Ken Hensley, who had passed away in 2020. He (Hensley) having written or co-written the majority of the songs we heard this evening.
So.......for no other reason, than I want to, I thought I may go back and re-listen to all the Ken Hensley era Uriah Heep albums, and just pen a few thoughts and impressions upon them.
But first, a wee bit of history. Mick Box (born June 1947) took up playing guitar at the age of 14, forming his first band The Stalkers in the mid-sixties (I assume stalking meant something different back then). Vocalist David Byron (born Garrick) was drafted into the fold at the recommendation of the band's drummer Rog Penlington, who also happened to be Byron's cousin. The band were semi-professional at this point, pretty much sticking to the covers circuit by all accounts.
Deciding to go full-time, Box and Byron formed Spice, going through a number of rhythm sections before settling on bassist Paul Newton and Glasgow born drummer Alex Napier. A Marquee residency followed, and a remarkably jaunty single (What About the Music) was released in 1968, to little success. Although the internet would suggest Nigel Pegrum and Warwick Rose actually played drums and bass respectively, on this one.
By late 1969, the band had just settled down to recording their debut album, with session player Colin Wood adding keyboards, when it was felt some big bad Hammond organ was required to beef up the sound - so enter Ken Hensley, who had previously played with Paul Newton in a band called The Gods.
Thus did Spice become Uriah Heep in March 1970. The album entitled Very 'Eavy, Very 'Umble (VEVU) was released the following June, to almost universal apathy in the UK, outright hostility in the US....and yet sold remarkably well in Germany.
VEVU was, aptly enough, the first Uriah Heep album I ever heard - although I was very late to the party, it being early 1977 when a mate purchased an impressively scratched (deliberately mutilated, one might say) copy for 25p from an Edinburgh second-hand record shop. I had given him carte blanche to get me any Uriah Heep he could lay his hands on. And he came back with this copy of the band's debut album, plus a ropey Sweet Freedom disc (which my stylus persisted in bouncing on through the first track) for a total of two quid. Quite a hefty investment for a skint schoolboy in the mid seventies.
Whatever one has to say about the quality of the music on VEVU, I have to say I love the crystal clear production. Every note, chord and riff bounces out at the listener. I don't know if this was in part due the necessity of recording on an eight track - sixteen track recorders still an expensive novelty back then.
As stated earlier, Ken Hensley had joined the band in early 1970 after recordings had commenced and, rather oddly, the band chose not to re-record the parts of the previous keyboard player (Colin Wood). And, I have to say, I find the two tracks Wood appears on (Come Away Melinda and Wake Up, Set Your Sights) the most interesting on the album.
The former is, of course, a hoary old folk classic, the best known recordings being those by Harry Belafonte, and by The Weavers. In these early renditions the verses were generally jauntily sung, often by a children's chorus, but Byron's vocal is, by contrast, almost heartbreakingly fragile. Box's subtle acoustic guitar work and Wood's evocative contributions really makes this a rather special interpretation - although I am aware it is a song which has long divided Heep fans. I do find it significant though, that the present incarnation of the band have begun adding it to their set of late.
By contrast Wake Up, Set Your Sights is by some way the most complex tune on the album - the band attempting to sound like King Crimson, as Box would latter admit. The lyrics are typically twee Summer of Love fluff, but Byron's vocal performance is nothing short of breathtaking, shifting effortlessly from powerful anger to wistful musings. The Box/Byron songwriting team would never again come up with anything so wonderful.
Distinctly less fun was the interminably turgid Lucy Blues; a song I do think I had ever succeeded in listening to all the way through, before forcing myself to do so for these scribbles. Hensley's Jimmy Smith impression midway through is the only thing remotely of interest in the five minute plod.
Which sorta leaves the five proto-metal rockers which make up the rest of the album. Gypsy is undoubtedly the best known of these, and I would suggest the band have probably played this one at every gig since their inception over half a century ago. I never really understood why, for it really has little - a memorable riff apart - to hold the listener's attention. The band clearly regard it as their Whole Lotta Love.
Dreammare, credited on the album sleeve to Paul Newton, but since claimed by Ken Hensley is the best of the five - Hensley's ominous keyboards giving way to crashing chords, leading to some rather pleasingly industrial sounding Mick Box guitar work. The high-pitched "La La La La" sections (classic Hensley) can grate a bit, but overall I feel felt this song works.
Keep on Trying, and Walking in Your Shadow are fairly disposable chunks of blues-based rock, whilst Real Turned On benefits from Ken Hensley's slide guitar. With no lyrics printed on the album sleeve, for years I misheard the opening lines to this latter one as;
Keep on Trying, and Walking in Your Shadow are fairly disposable chunks of blues-based rock, whilst Real Turned On benefits from Ken Hensley's slide guitar. With no lyrics printed on the album sleeve, for years I misheard the opening lines to this latter one as;
"Girl, before you go now, there's one thing I want you to do.
Is get a tin of baccy, because I wan't to make love to you."
Towards the end of the VUVH sessions drummer Alex Napier, who could be a bit of a cantankerous sod by all accounts, had been replaced by Nigel Olsson. But the latter scooted off to join Elton John's band (who wouldn't?) as soon as the album was finished.
Keith Baker, who had previously played with Supertramp and Bakerloo took up the drum stool, and stayed with the band through most of 1970, including the recording of the band's second album Salisbury.
The Park has Byron still in falsetto mode, but this is a far more sedate and introspective piece. But the vocals soon begin to irk, in what is a remarkably insubstantial tune. The song stops for a few seconds for Hensley to inject some pleasingly baroque-sounding noodling, but all too soon Byron is back whining once more. Undoubtedly the weakest song on the album, I feel.
Time To Live is a more upbeat offering, relating the tale of a chap about to be released from prison for killing some another bod in revenge, after He Did What He did To Maria. Unfortunately, it is all pretty forgettable stuff, Box's trademark wah-wah contributions aside.
Which brings us to Lady in Black - arguably the band's best known song - at least in Germany. I have never understood it's popularity (a number one single with our Teutonic cousins, I believe). Perhaps Hensley's anti-war message struck a chord with the post-war Germany generation, but Byron certainly shared my distaste, for he refused to sing on the thing, or so the story goes.
High Priestess is my own personal fave from the album (Hensley taking lead vocal on this one too). An underpinning Quo-boogie riff is embellished by some superb harmonies and Hensley's own slide work. The outro perhaps dribbles on a touch, but this is a most enjoyable romp.
The album closes with Heep's homage to Deep Purple's Concerto For Group and Orchestra: Salisbury. With those horns and choir the sixteen minute epic briefly opens like some lesser Ennio Morricone spaghetti-western theme. But the business soon degenerates into a sloppy cut and paste job (or snip and tape, I suppose it would better be termed), with all manner of disparate and seemingly unrelated musical ideas tossed into the broth. Lyrically things are hardly better, with whoever came up with the lines doing so by tossing a thesaurus in the direction of what is in effect yer basic "My baby done left me".
I do rather like Mick Box's solo, though.
Heep's incessant touring schedule took its toll on Keith Baker, and he quit in December 1970, his replacement Ian Clark making his debut with the band on Christmas Day of that year.
During 1971, Heep made their first trek across the Atlantic for a month long US tour. Back home, they recorded the Look at Yourself album. And, although Ian Clark's pic appears on the rear of the album, for some reason he is not credited.
The Look at Yourself album represented a significant step forward for the band, a fact no better demonstrated than by the superb title track. Tribal drumming opens the piece before Hensley sets up a thrusting driving Hammond riff, that propels the thing along a 100 mph. Mick Box's guitar injections just jack up the aural pressure even more. Hensley himself sings the song with, one assumes, Byron relegated to providing those screaming harmonies.
And just as you feel the tension can get no higher, the Osibisa percussion section step in to bring the song to a crashing climax. Phew. Manager/Producer Gerry Bron, when he first heard this one, must have realised he was going to be a rich man very soon.
I Wanna Be Free - Now this is a very interesting song. Credited to Ken Hensley, it clearly and shamelessly re-uses the Gypsy riff, and I have always wondered if this was Hensley's way of letting us all know who really wrote Gypsy. It also harks back to that crisp, crystal clear production of the first album. Lyrically, it is also important as it appears to me (although I could be wrong here) the first example of Hensley directing his lyrics at the band's detractors in the music press (of which there were many). Although they could equally be about depression or about writer's block. Or both. Or neither.
I have always enjoyed it, all the same.
July Morning - Uriah Heep's Stairway to Heaven, I have heard this one referred to. But I have never really warmed to it. The lyrics always strike me as a bit silly, even if beautifully sung by Byron.
Hensley does a neat little trick with the organ solo, delaying his entry by a beat which, for reasons I cannot explain, elevates his performance immeasurably. In my view, the song should have been allowed to fade out after this organ solo, but it has a further six minutes to go. During which Byron's sets up a grating screech and Box chips in with a tedious guitar riff he repeats ad infinitum to the bitter end.
And, whereas the decision to invite label mates Osibisa onto the title track had been one of genius, whomsoever invited Manfred Mann to add irksome moog doodlings to the interminable outro really deserved to be held down and slapped.
Tears in My Eyes - Ken Hensley would occasionally pick up a slide guitar during his own compositions, and things generally turned out well whenever he did. Never more successfully than with Tears in My Eyes; a song which IMO vies with the Look at Yourself track as the high point of the band's pre Demons and Wizards output.
I love the way the listener is completely wrong-footed (aurally, speaking) with the introduction of the acoustic guitar and the "Na na na na na" section. Before Hensley returns to gleefully rip our ears off once more. "Watch Out!!" Byron yells at one point. And he means it.
It would be downhill from here on in for the album though.
Shadows of Grief is a call back to the kitchen-sink approach which did for the Salisbury track, and we are presented with what appears to be a stitched together Frankensteins's monster of various half-formed musical ideas left over from when the real songs were finished. Ian Clark does his best early on, but even he gets drowned in the detritus.
What Should be Done - Another duffer. Hensley would go on to write some sublime piano backed songs for Byron. But this early attempt falls flat on its face, I am afraid.
Love Machine - It is probably a good indicator of where the power had shifted within the band that Love Machine represents Mick Box's sole writing credit. Ken Hensley, by contrast, having written or co-written every track on the album. It is a moderately successful rocker, with probably a higher than deserved profile in the Heep canon due to its subsequent appearance on the successful Live 1973 album. It does, however, feel like an inferior re-tread of Look at Yourself.
Look at Yourself would be the final studio album for founder member Paul Newton, the bassist quitting the band in November 1971 not long after (according to Heep's own website) collapsing on stage a week or so earlier. Former Colosseum bassist Mark Clarke briefly filled in for Newton (so for a few gigs, Uriah Heep were a two Clark band - sorta). But drummer Iain Clark swiftly followed Newton out of the door, to be replaced by Lee Kerslake - another former band-mate of Hensley in The Gods.
Mark Clarke's tenure as a full-time band member would be extremely brief, however, and he left the band two months later, midway through an American tour. But not before he had written the "Why don't we listen..." middle eight section of what would become one of the band's most celebrated songs: The Wizard. He also played bass and sang backing vocal on the studio recording. I have occasionally pondered, given Gerry Bron's (alleged) machinations whether Clarke did, or indeed still is, receiving composer royalties for his contribution. I do hope so.
Clarke's replacement was New Zealander Gary Thain, the final jigsaw piece in what would become regarded as Uriah Heep's classic line-up of Box, Byron, Hensley, Kerslake and Thain.
The Wizard - I really cannot be cool about this song for I absolutely love it, with it's iconic acoustic guitar intro, and dominant vocal performance by Byron. Hensley's Tolkein-esque lyrics captured the spirit of the times perfectly; the only mis-step being the clunky "Me and my magic man kinda feeling fine" line.
Traveller in Time - The lyrics to this one remind me a touch of Black Sabbath's Iron Man. No relation between the songs of course, other than both have a toe in the realm of science fiction, with each seemingly housing an intriguing back story, about which the lyrics only tease us. And yet, musically, Traveller in Time has always struck me as one of the weakest on the album, it relying primarily on a not terribly interesting Box riff to move things along.
And so to Easy Livin' where gone completely is all pretence to heavy metal, and in it's place Hensley and Box have together set up an infectious wall of noise. Gary Thain's bass dancing around the melody is just the icing on a pretty darned special cake. A top 40 hit for the band in the States, and quite rightly so.
There are a couple of cinderella tracks on Demons and Wizards which sorta drift along under most folks' radar. Most certainly NOT filler, but somehow rarely commented upon. And Poet's Justice is one such. Clearly taking it's title from the term "poetic justice", I have no idea what "poet's justice" is. But it barely seems to matter.
For those opening choir of ascending voices herald in another piece of perfectly formed soft rock. With that little "Whah!" at 0:19 Heep's marmite moment. If you hate that, then you probably hate everything the band has ever done.
Circle of Hands - One of Ken Hensley's Good versus Evil songs which would pepper this and the next album, Circle of Hands at first feels like a bit of a re-write of July Morning, with organ chords replacing arpeggios in the intro. But I actually feel this to be a far superior song. The harmonies are way tighter, and the band this time around know just exactly when to fade out.
And I just love those lines:
"Skyful of eyes, minds full of lies
Black from their cold hearts, down to their graves".
Of course, Hensley could just be having another go at rock critics.
Rainbow Demon - Things take a darker turn with opening track to side 2 (vinyl days). I have never had much time for this one, for it is the only one that really sounds like padding to me. It feels as if it was written one afternoon to order, simply because the album required a song about demons.
Hensley's organ ominously heralds the tune in but even after the rest of the band enter, the composition doesn't really go anywhere of interest. Mick Box does his best to inject some interest into proceedings, but this is a long, long way from his best piece of soloing.
And, for some reason, I have always been irked by the fact the Rainbow Demon has a gun. Perhaps it is a euphemism for something else, but it has always struck me as lazy lyric writing. Something Hensley, I feel, was frequently guilty of.
All My Life is one of only two songs on the album (the other being Traveller in Time) to which Ken Hensley does not receive a writing credit. Which I find rather odd, as it is Hensley's slide work which lifts this one out of the mediocre category. I have read occasional criticisms of Byron's vocal gymnastics during the outro, but I think they work rather well.
Which brings us, of course, to Paradise and The Spell, a brace of songs which run into each other, and probably as proggy as the band ever got.
Paradise opens with Hensley singing over a strummed acoustic guitar, with Gary Thain's melodic bass to the fore. Hensley and Byron then begin to share the vocals, alternating verses, and then lines - not in the manner of the Good v Bad conversations heard in The Spell and, later, on The Magician's Birthday track, but as the same character. At least I think so.
Never been quite sure about the lyrics - for where Hensley sings:
"Spread your wings my daunted soul
The time has come to go
I will not be hurried down
Or blackened by your lies
I must go and find my dream
And live in paradise."
I have oft pondered: Is this a suicide note?
Paradise seamlessly glides into the the first section of The Spell, a jaunty distorted organ shuffle, which I have always found maddeningly familiar yet unidentifiable. I am still, as I was when I first heard the song in the last 1970s, put in mind of some BBC public information cartoon. Possibly Heath & Safety related?
Lyrically the thing soon gets a bit confusing - are there two characters speaking, (if you see what I mean?): Byron's, and Hensley's falsetto? We certainly seem to have some sort of Good vs Evil dialogue going on, but it is maddeningly difficult to work out who is saying what.
And what exactly is meant by those final lines:
Be sure you're watching me
Cause all through your life
Everyday and every night
You should know that
I'll be watching you.
Is it God or the Devil threatening this perpetual scrutiny?
Again it strikes me as lazy lyric writing by Hensley. Fortunately the song, particularly the slide guitar interlude, is so marvellously well constructed, I can forgive him this time.
Demons and Wizards was not the band's biggest selling album - that accolade belongs to 1973's Sweet Freedom, but few people would disagree it represents the band's artistic peak. They would never again produce a collection of such consistently high quality. And over half-a-century later, I would attest the Demons and Wizards album can justifiably take hold its own amongst the finest progressive rock albums of the Seventies. And Roger Dean's cover painting is just sublime.
Not surprisingly manager Gerry Bron encouraged the band to get another fantasy based album out ASAP and, a short six months later, The Magician's Birthday was released. And pretty much everything about the collection seems rushed and undercooked, having the feel of a clutch of hastily written songs padded out with a few rejects from Demons and Wizards....plus a bizarre drum and guitar interlude which was clearly designed solely to push the album running time into respectable territory.
Even Roger Dean's cover painting this time around, with those huge swathes of plain red, looks as if he was only halfway through completing it when it was needed. With the baddie's face looking as if it was cut from a book and stuck onto the original painting with a Pritt stick.
"Sunrise, and the new day's breaking through
The morning of another day without you
And as the hours roll by
No one's there to see me cry
Except the sunrise
The sunrise and you."
How does that work? Is the singer alone or not?
Later, our narrator assures us:
"I'm tired of fighting and fooling around
But from now till' who knows when
My sword will be my pen."
So, is he stopping fighting, or continuing to do so?
But Sunrise is a strong, strong opener to the collection for all that, and was performed as the opening song on the concurrent tour.
Spider Woman, by contrast is a disappointingly inconsequential ditty - credited to the four non-Hensley band members - which thankfully flies by in less than two-and-a-half minutes. It was, somewhat bafflingly, chosen as the lead single from the album in Europe. Although, to be fair, it was a top 20 hit in Germany. So, what do I know?
Ken Hensley's Blind Eye is a far superior tune, it's dark lyrics contrasting with the jaunty Kerslake driven accompaniment. The double-tracked guitar interlude sounds not unlike Argus-era Wishbone Ash. It being a total coincidence, of course, that Ash opened their debut album with a (totally different) song called Blind Eye.
Echoes in the Dark is definitely a composition which feels unfinished, and cobbled together with the studio clock ticking. Ominous sounding organ chords give way to Byron singing Hensley's lyrics relating some sort of traveller in bad places. But then arrives an uplifting middle eight of:
"Though I'd love to Say hello to you
You might have to wait a while to say Goodbye."
Which makes no sense whatsoever. The song, one of Hensley's poorest I believe, concludes with Byron compelled to burble about the importance of having a friend. Dire stuff.
Rain is much better - a gentle piano-led ballad, but another one let down a touch by clumsy lyrics: "The world is yours, but I am mine." But Byron's performance more than saves the day.
The album's best known track is probably Sweet Lorraine - a tale of a drug-toting groupie, if I am not much mistaken. Oddly enough, despite the fact he gets no writing credit on this one, it is Hensley's keyboards which dominates the song. There is an eerie Outer Limits/Twilight Zone solo midway through, but it his repeating two note motif which makes Sweet Lorraine such a memorable listen.
Although I, (and I guess a number of folks of my vintage may too) when listening to this one am always put in mind of Donny Osmond's moog contribution to Crazy Horses.
Tales certainly feels like a refugee from Hensley's abandoned short story/concept to the album, for it clearly references The Magician of the title track. Lyrically it feels like a bit of a, not quite filler, but a linking piece in a bigger narrative. Which I suppose, it was probably intended to be.
Musically, it shows a restraint and economy of style I rather wish the band had indulged in more. Session musician Brian Cole adds a touch of tasteful pedal steel to the sound, and Byron treats us to one of his special growls around 2:50. What's not to love?
The title track, The Magician's Birthday closes the collection, and nothing highlights more the frantic rushed job the recordings clearly were, than this hastily bolted together mess.
The opening section is a fairly standard rocker, which would probably not have sounded out of place on Houses of the Holy, but the band then jarringly go into a kazoo-led rendition of Happy Birthday To You. It really sounds like a bad joke, which no-one had the nerve to challenge Hensley on.
Clearly still short of a few minutes to bulk out the album a four-minute (recorded post pub-lunch, by one account) duel between Kerslake and Box is then shoe-horned into the song. It is a moderately diverting interlude, but does not really stand up to repeated listening. The whole business climaxes with Byron and Hensley duetting another Good vs Evil encounter, repeating the technique from The Spell. This one feels vastly inferior though, although one has to offer respect to Hensley for succeeding in getting his tongue around the lyric "An impenetrable fortress of love".
The song, and hence the album as a whole, fades to a wholly unsatisfactory conclusion after this point. I have more than once thought, the band should have been bold enough to have chosen Rain as the album closer. For, with a bit of judicious track running order shuffling, we could have had the whole fantasy business being naught but a Sweet Lorraine's "magic potion" inspired trip.
That is assuming the recording is all live of course, for I have long held doubts for no other reason than both the sound quality and band's performance are of such high quality. Ken Hensley has admitted to some backing vocals, and the moog work on Sweet Lorraine, being added in the studio. And I have always had suspicions over that synthesiser interjection during the outro to Circle of Hands.
But, hey, let us listen without prejudice if we can.
As the album was recorded during The Magicians Birthday tour, it is fitting the show commences with the opening song from that album: Sunrise. And a fine, fine performance it is, Byron effortlessly reaching those high notes.
Sweet Lorraine follows, and this arrangement rattles along at a slightly faster tempo than on the studio album with, as throughout most of this live set, Gary Thain's bass work catching the ear, particularly during the moog solo here. And, with Byron giving out one of his trademark growls around 3:17, this really is a most enjoyable trip.
Traveller in Time is, regretfully, as dull as on the Demons and Wizards album. Byron does his best, but it doesn't really sound as if the band's heart is truly in it here. The song segues directly into a rather slapdash version of Easy Livin'. The crisp thrusting wall of noise which made the studio version so memorable just an aural mush here. Thain's bass runs almost save the day, but not quite.
Sounding oddly adenoidal Byron then introduces July Morning, before the band run through a fairly pedestrian version of their epic. There is little of note to distinguish this from the studio version. Other than the fact Hensley does not do that neat miss-a-beat thing before commencing his solo, but heads straight on in on the upbeat. And, as with the studio version, the outro goes on waaaaay too long.
I remember being blown away upon hearing Tears in My Eyes for the first time. (I heard this live version before encountering the studio one). Hensley's slide guitar work here is just magical, making this track a real high spot on the album.
With Gypsy we arrive, of course, at Byron's famous spinal-tap moment, when he informs us the song features "the moog simplifier". The fact that no-one bothered to edit this embarrassing gaff out perhaps lends credence to Lee Kerslake's assertion that there was no overdubbing with any of the recording.
The pleasingly complex intro allows Kerslake the opportunity to bash away happily, but once the riff commences I tend to lose interest in the song. Midway through Hensley's keyboard solo, Kerslake sets up a beat and the pair embark on a moog/drums driven meander. I found this section moderately diverting upon the first few encounters, but there is little going on to encourage frequent re-visits.
Tagged onto the end of the song is more even Kerslake - a drum solo this time. I generally have little time for drum solos - my untutored ears generally finding them so unstructured. But I have always enjoyed the relative simplicity of Kerslake's work here. At least until the final few moments, where he appears to lose his way a bit and ends up clattering about all over the place.
Circle of Hands is another high peak of the set; an even more accomplished rendition than the studio version. I think it is Mick Box playing the Hensley slide guitar part in the outro, before Hensley himself brings the moog synthesiser into play to great effect. Underpinning all of this is Gary Thain's deftly nimble bass work. 'tis just superb
The main set closer Look at Yourself has Byron doing his best to get everyone in the place up and clapping, before yelling "Look....At....Yourselves" at which point, I am guessing, the house lights briefly came up to allow the assembled Brummies to do just exactly that.
It is a moderately diverting rendition, but rather like Easy Livin' much of the relentless organ riffing of the original is replaced with muggy noise. And, of course, of the manic Osibisa climax there is no trace; we instead being exposed to some irritating Gillan-esque call and response screaming from Byron, which barely compensates.
The encores open with the Happy Birthday snippet from The Magician's Birthday. Out of context this seems bizarre, and I imagine any folks in the Birmingham audience who had not yet heard the album must have wondered what the hell was going on. But after a minute or so, Hensley's organ introduces Love Machine, which the band trample on through.
The show ends with an eight minute Rock and Roll Medley, as the boys pay homage to their forebears. I have to say, I have always enjoyed this section. The band genuinely seem to be enjoying themselves, Box and Hensley each relishing space to solo, and Byron hamming it up playing Elvis, Chuck and Jerry Lee.
Clocking in at just over 77 minutes, Live 1973 does feel rather light for a double live album, and I have frequently wondered why space could not have been found for the likes of Lady in Black, Bird of Prey or The Wizard. But Heep have never gone in for playing lengthy sets, making this album a genuine record of the band on stage, I suppose.
By the time of the band's next studio release they had switched labels in North America from Mercury to Warner Brothers, and it has been suggestes the album title Sweet Freedom referenced this move. I have also read that for the band it also represented freedom from the fantasy output they were being expected to churn out.
Whatever - and I rather doubt both of these suggestions - what is true is that Sweet Freedom represents a significant change in direction for Uriah Heep, as they abandon the fantasy-based lyrics and proggy inclinations of their previous two studio releases, and deliver a more standard rock album. And a pretty impressive one at that.
Stealin' is undoubtedly the best known track from the album, and I would imagine the band have probably played it at every gig since 1973. Opening with a rumbling bass intro from Gary Thain, the lyrics tell of a wild west rascal on the run after having "Done the rancher's daughter". Not very PC, even back then, I rather think this line alone prevented UH having a hit single with the thing stateside. For I imagine very few US radio stations would have been comfortable with the lyric.
Byron's voice is superb though, and Box and Hensley set up their wall of noise throughout, with Box squeezing out a jaunty guitar solo. The outro perhaps goes on a touch too long, but I love hearing Byron screaming "Rock and roll".
One Day is another of my favourites from the album. I am not sure if the lyrics are another barb aimed at the music press by Hensley, but it really is a perfectly crafted rock song - particularly that "I still remember...." middle eight.
I have time for the title track, though. For although there is an enjoyable bouncy guitar business going on during the intro, Sweet Freedom strikes me as a palpably inferior re-write of Circle of Hands.
The weakest tune on the collection however, by some way, is If I Had the Time. It relies upon a fairly simple synthesiser line to drive it along, but the seemingly endless repetition of this lick soon has the listener's interest waning. And lyrically, anything the song has to say is done so in first two lines.
Seven Stars sounds like an attempt to produce another Easy Livin'. It is a moderately successful clone, but the "Who fills my mind..." chorus just seems to jar. And when Byron begins to sing the alphabet, this listener's reaction is "WTF?"
Circus, written by Thain, Box and Kerslake, relates the lads' impressions of the various crazies they encountered during their first trip to Los Angeles. It is a very simple and effective acoustic guitar led arrangement, which shows another side to the band's writing. And an area which was sadly never really revisited. Certainly one of my faves from the album.
Another being the closer Pilgrim. Although being credited to Byron and Hensley, the song is dominated by Mick Box's guitar. His chugga-chugga Shaft guitar sound fuels the first section, whilst an ear-melting solo heralds in the second. The song also fades with Mick giving it laldy on his waw-wah pedal.
Byron puts in a sterling performance, particularly during that "Alexander The Great" second section. Whilst Gary Thain's deftly dancing bass dancing is, as ever, a joy. If I do have a minor gripe with the song, it is some of the lines of the lyrics grate a touch:
"Love lies waiting at our back door
Such a beautiful matter of fact
Life's like an apple with love as the core
And I'll tell you 'bout that."
Dunno 'bout you, but I toss away an apple core.
Just my opinion, but I believe Sweet Freedom to be the last of the "classic" Uriah Heep albums. And, although Firefly has its moments, it would be pretty much downhill all the way from here, leading to the Big Split at the end of 1980.
Only on the bluesy I Won't Mind is the guitarist's work to the fore - but this tune is such a lumpen chore to listen to, not even the man's not inconsiderable talents can save the thing.
Consequently, it is the less bombastic pieces which work best on Wonderworld. The Easy Road is a fine, fine ballad on which David Byron gives a beautifully tender performance.
My own favourite tune is Shadows and The Wind. Although lyrically it appears just another of Hensley's moans at the music critics, musically the song builds through a number of phases to a strangely appealing a capella section.
The album opens and closes with a brace of tunes taking dreams as their theme. The opener Wonderworld, begins with a synthesiser flourish which settles down into some tasteful piano just before Byron steps in. And for a few minutes all is well, but the song sorta loses its way thereafter, as the band end up seemingly just going through the motions.
The album closer Dreams is marginally better, but not much. I do like Byron's snarled "C'mon" around 90 seconds in, but the chorus is all rather irksome. The song dribbles to a close during a sort of dream sequence, wherein Byron sings snatches of Dreamer and Sweet Freedom from the previous album.
Although, one does not have to look too hard on the internet to find folks who claim to have been there that evening, and assert Thain was never electrocuted - but merely a substance-addled bass player who could hardly stand let alone play. Whatever the truth, Thain was replaced by John Wetton in March 1975, and was dead of a heroin overdose by the end of that year.
The positive publicity associated with the signing of such a marquee player as Wetton, allied to the deliberately misleading title (Get more Magicians, Demons and Wizards here!!) helped propel Return to Fantasy into the UK Top 10 album charts: a first (and thus far, last) for the band.
It is actually a pretty decent album; certainly a step up from Wonderworld. But, in fairness, that was not a particularly high bar to reach.
The opener, Return to Fantasy, begins with some suitably dramatic keyboards, Hensley fiddling about with his moog, before the thing sets off at a sprint, with Lee Kerslake's drumming to the fore. Byron puts in a typically melodramatic performance, doing his best with a bunch of silly lyrics which manage to, verbosely, say nothing at all.
Any notion the listener had that this was going to be some longed-for Demons and Wizards reboot is rapidly dispelled by the next two tracks, which are each rather more earthy compositions, making me think David Byron's hand was on the lyrical pen here. Shady Lady is a raunchy effort with Byron (at times unintentionally comically) relating an encounter with some St Louis groupie.
Devil's Daughter, which the band would use to open shows on the next two tours mines much of the same territory. But with cowbells. This latter tune houses a moderately diverting keys/guitar duet, but it does feel rather like filler.
Side one of the vinyl album closed with Beautiful Dream, a synth-driven rocker which tries desperately to be bigger than it actually is. Byron in particular, screaming for all he is worth just before the band appear to lose interest leaving the song to meander to a most unsatisfactory fade-out. It is one of the few songs where we really get to hear John Wetton - Gerry Bron clearly deciding the New Boy should be buried deep in the mix, lest he become too big for his boots.
Flipping the vinyl over we are presented with five shorter songs of varying degrees of success.
Prima Donna has the band drafting in a clunky horn section and doop doop do-ing away for all they are worth, in the background. The story goes Byron wrote the lyrics after being called a prima donna by band Producer/Manager Bron. And the song actually works for the most part. I liked it anyway. Not sure though about the lyric:
"You're our kind of people
You're the church and we're the steeple
But we're all inside the hall."
Your Turn to Remember, by contrast, is a lumpen Hensley-penned train smash with little to commend it, and it is well steered clear of.
Showdown feels like some sort of High Noon shootout inspired cowboy song - but is probably just another clumsy swipe at the band's detractors. But, musically, I consider it to be one of the stronger songs on the album....in no small way due to some fine slide geetar from Hensley.
Why did You Go, regretfully, is just nonsense. A C&W influenced plodder with what sounds like pedal steel yawing away in the background. One has to wonder what John Wetton was pondering at this point - he, just a year earlier, having been involved in recording that superb Red album with King Crimson.
But the band saved the best for last with A Year or A Day which could (with a bit of shoving) have actually fitted onto one or other of those 1972 fantasy albums, and not sounded out of place. The lyric has Hensley attempting to push some sort of admirable ecological message, but his lyrics at times are just word salad. To whit:
"Young man cried the old man
Let the youth in your heart be at rest
We may all be dead in a year or a day
When the devil is put to the test."
But Bryon's performance rescues it from the mediocrity which besmirched much of the rest of the album.
The overriding impression from a release which promised us both a Return to Fantasy and the prodigious talent of John Kenneth Wetton, is that it ultimately provided precious little of either. There was not a whole lot of JW in evidence on much of the next album High and Mighty either......with one wonderful exception.
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Perhaps the bassist is singing at a higher register than he is completely comfortable with, and Hensley has certainly crammed more words into each line than is really necessary. But that is undoubtedly JW singing, with our Ken falsetto-ing the middle eight. It really is a superb song. I loved it upon first hearing in the late 1970s, and still do.
I remember emailing Wetton about twenty-odd years ago, asking him how come he ended up singing this one. But I got no reply. Byron, in a contemporary interview, asserts he was incapacitated with chicken pox at the time. In fact he suggests Wetton actually sang on two recordings during the vocalist's absence, which is more than a little intriguing. But I can only assume the second tune ended up on the studio cutting room floor, as the rest of the album clearly has Byron on vocals.
Despite making a significant contribution to One Way or Another, Wetton did not receive a songwriting credit....and yet, slightly oddly, he did with the second track Weep in Silence, where he is pretty much anonymous. Dominated by Box' guitar, the song is a pleasant enough (if, slightly overlong) journey. Lyrically, the tale could be a second person account of The Pilgrim from Sweet Freedom.....or, equally, just another jab at the rock critics.
Misty Eyes is a bit better, but not much. The song recovers from a cringe-inducing a capella intro to develop into a moderately listenable pop tune once the acoustic guitars arrive. But in reality, the song soon sees the listener's attention wander.
Midnight feels like it was written to be the prog-epic on the album. But after the strident guitar intro, the business degenerates into an utterly forgettable experience, with Lee Kerslake clattering away utterly at odds with the feel of the song. Lyrically, it appears to have Hensley bemoaning the unsatisfaction success has brought him.
The band (or Hensley, I assume) must have felt this was a quality item, for it was one of just three tracks (along with One Way or Another and Make a Little Love) to find its way into the set list of the supporting tour. Personally, it is one of those songs, ten minutes after listening to it, I find I can barely recall anything about.
Hensley's obsession with the band's reputation amongst rock critics reaches its height with the marvellously titled You Can't Keep a Good Band Down.
"I can't believe y'all still sayin'
We're a long way from rock 'n' roll."
and then
"We could still be friends and quit this fightin'
And let the real story be told."
Clumsy, crass and not a little bit arrogant, you have to admire the size of Hensley's balls here in even contemplating such a lyric. The sole mis-step is the line "You're dealing with an institution". Rock and Roll is meant to be edgy, rebellious and (above all else) anti-institution, someone should have told him.
With producer Gerry Bron sitting this one out to concentrate on his air-taxi venture, Ken Hensley was clearly given a free reign to pretty much record whatever he wanted, with little or no interference from the other group members. Otherwise surely someone would have asked what the hell the Pythonesque borderline racist (if not over the border) pseudo African chant which opens Can't Stop Singing was all about. "Loada laughs in Africa", does it go?? I have no idea. But that bizarre intro represents the high water mark of this particular composition. Perhaps Uriah Heep's worst ever song? A strong candidate, certainly.
Actually when I think about it, that accolade could perhaps just fall to Woman of the World.....or maybe even Footprints in the Snow. The second side of this album really does feel like barrel-scraping of the most fervent order.
Make a Little Love houses a vague Southern States rock feel to it. Certainly not natural Heep territory, I would suggest, but the band do make a decent fist of things here.
The album's closing track Confession is another of those piano/Byron's voice things Hensley would write. Perhaps not up to the standard of Rain or The Easy Road, but it is pleasant enough and allows High and Mighty (and Byron's Heep career) to end on a pleasing high note (both literally and figuratively).
For High and Mighty turned out to David Byron's last album with the band, as the rest of the guys decided not only was he pissing his own career down the pan, but probably theirs as well. So, following a plate glass/drunken foot interface incident in Spain, Mr. Byron was unceremoniously shown the door. Wetton, perhaps not surprisingly, decided this was probably a good time to jump ship too.
Byron formed Rough Diamond with Clem Clempson in 1977, the band releasing a single self titled album, before splitting not long after. A solo album from the vocalist entitled Baby Faced Killer followed in 1978, but this fared little better in the punky environment of the time.
In 1981 Box invited Byron back into the Uriah Heep fold, but the singer was in the process of putting together The Byron Band, so refused. But this latest venture proved to be as unsuccessful as his previous, and a clearly disillusioned Byron was found dead in his home in February 1985.
When scouting for replacements for Byron, former Deep Purple vocalist David Coverdale apparently jammed with the band, but without ever having any intention of joining. Ian Hunter claims he was offered the gig by post, but turned it down. Gary Holton whose band The Heavy Metal Kids had supported Heep in 1975, has also been mentioned as a possibility.
In the end, the band plumped for the relatively unknown John Lawton - a Yorkshiremen, who had spent the majority of his career in Germany juggling the contrasting vocal requirements of heavy rock band Lucifer's Friend with easy listening outfit The Les Humphries Singers.
To replace Wetton, the band chose Trevor Bolder, who of course had been a Spider From Mars. The new lads made the debut on the 1977 album Firefly.
The Hanging Tree opens with some vaguely hoofbeat-sounding synth before Lee Kerslake kicks in and the song sets off at a gallop. Which is kinda apt, as what we have here is another of Ken Hensley's cowboy songs. In fact, The Hanging Tree could almost be a third person of account of that rapscallion from Stealin'.
John Lawton's entry into proceedings is confident and self-assured, and the whole thing develops into a pleasing, if innocuous, rocker. The band played the tune on a few dates early on during the Firefly tour by all accounts, but it had been dropped by the time I saw them.
There is a neat guitar solo, but the lyrics (as so often the case) let the song down a touch. I am quite sure, with a little bit of thought, Hensley (or perhaps co-writer Jack Williams) could have come up with something better than "Oh, he's a bad man, so they say". And has anyone ever used the term "a horsey ride"?
Been Away Too Long commences with some tinkling guitar, not totally dissimilar to that which heralded in Weep in Silence, but then half-a-minute in Lawton yells out a bluesy "Whoooah yeh" and the song kicks off, morphing into a pleasing bundle of AOR. Mick Box pulls out a fine guitar solo over some impressive work by Bolder and Kerslake. The song could probably ended after this instrumental break, but it aimlessly wanders about for nearly a couple more minutes to little real effect.
Lee Kerslake's Who Needs Me is a shuffling rocker, ironically relating the drummer's perceived inability to get any of his compositions past Gerry Bron and onto Heep albums. Well, he manages one here, but it is Mick Box's guitar which makes this one work. Certainly one of the stronger tracks on the album.
Wise Man was one of the first Uriah Heep songs I ever heard for, back in the day, one could pick up your house telephone and dial a (premium rate, I assume) number and listen to the song. Proof, I suppose, that listening to music on one's phone is nothing new.
I remember actually recording the tune on my cassette player, holding the mike against the phone earpiece. It is a song I have always liked, and one which has grown with me over the years. I love Lawton's soulful, gospel-tinged vocal. The only downer is that line "I wanna be like you, and be a wise man too", which always conjures up (in my mind anyway) images of King Louie singing to Mowgli in Disney's Jungle Book.
Do You Know, recovers from a jumpy opening to develop into an excellent pop song, with some sumptuous harmonies driven along by Hensley's Hammond. The band opened their Firefly Tour set with this one, when I saw them in Glasgow in 1977.
The one real duffer on the album is Rollin' On - regretfully also the longest composition. Tolerably hypnotic verses are spoiled by a tediously repetitive chorus. A lengthy instrumental break; a palpably inferior rewrite of the slide part in The Spell almost has the listener nodding off, before things eventually find their way back to the opening theme.
Sympathy is next, which I find such a frustrating song. Most of the band's double guitar compositions are quality, and musically this one is no exception. No, it is those lazily-written lyrics which spoil this one for me. Things begin so well, with Lawton telling us:
"Sympathy just doesn't mean that much to me
Compassion's not the fashion in my mind
And if you're looking for a shoulder to cry on
Don't turn your head my way
'Cause I'd rather have my music any day."
Compassion's not the fashion in my mind
And if you're looking for a shoulder to cry on
Don't turn your head my way
'Cause I'd rather have my music any day."
Which is just perfect. But, almost as if Hensley loses interest in developing this intriguing character further, he starts dribbling on about how:
"Dedication's not an obligation
Or a figment of someone's imagination"
What the fuck does any of that that mean? Just as baffling is the assertion:
"Dreams are the possession of the simple man
Reality the fantasy of youth."
The album closes with Firefly, a pleasingly proggy three parter, which successfully, I think, takes a friendly nod back to those 1972 albums.
The opening section has Hensley taking the lead vocal over a slightly cheesy ice-rink wurlitzer sound, bemoaning his unattainable love. Box's guitar then crashes in, and Lawton suddenly transforms the narrator into some cockney market-stall barrel-boy complaining, "I ain't had no lovin' lately".
This interlude fades into a remarkably beautiful acoustic guitar/electric piano final section, with Hensley taking over the vocal once more.
A fine end, to what remains a fine album.
In between the various legs of the Firefly Tour, which took place during the first half of 1977, the band recorded their next album, Innocent Victim. Whilst the Hensley dominated Firefly enjoyed a certain uniform feel to it, Innocent Victim would wind up being perhaps Uriah Heep's most musically diverse collection since Salisbury. And, like Salisbury, would yield a hit single - albeit in some geographically unlikely territories.
What Innocent Victim would share with Firefly, however, was an unchanged line-up, and also the fact on the opening track Ken Hensley shared a writing credit with Jack Williams (of more later). And what an odd song Keep on Ridin' is. With it's distinctly gospel backing, and what sounds like half-a-dozen Mahalia Jacksons singing and clapping along.
From the title alone, one could perhaps be forgiven for assuming this is another of Hensley's cowboy songs, but it is actually a monologue of a perpetually touring rocker explaining to his partner why he is off again. But it is a harmless piece of AOR, clearly designed for the American FM market.
Flyin' High is just more of the same really, and equally forgettable. In fact the only memorable thing about both these two opening tracks is Trevor Bolder's bass work, which somehow found itself well to the fore of the mix.
Bolder gets the opportunity to showcase his song-writing chops with Roller; co-written with one Pete McDonald, who had been a band-mate of Bolder's in an ill-judged post Bowie & Ronson attempt to cash in on The Spiders From Mars name.
And it is a bit difficult at times to really work out just how good or otherwise Bolder's writing is, for there is a LOT going on here. The song opens with some Sympathy-type double tracked guitar underpinned by a remarkable disco-sounding bass beat before, after Lawton interjects with one of his trademark "Oooooh, Yeh", we receive a few bars of some Status Quo boogie riffing.
Proceedings then settle down to a vaguely funky groove, the likes of which would not have sounded out of place on Come Taste The Band. In fact one could almost imagine David Coverdale singing this one. Which is no slight on Lawton, whose contribution to this album is top rate throughout.
Free 'n' Easy (four tracks in and four apostrophies!) has Lawton and Mick Box attempting to create something which may remind listeners of the old Heep days. Opening with a thrashy guitar riff, the song settles in to an Easy Livin'/ Something or Nothing shuffle. But that riff apart there is little of interest in the song, and Lawton's (I assume) lyric rather feels like it was made up in the studio as the recording was being made.
Hensley wrestles back the artistic control joystick for the next three songs, beginning with the borderline proggy Illusion. This one opens with a keys sequence which sounds not unlike the "dream" interlude in Wonderworld's Dreams, over which Hensley layers some evocative synthesiser work.
The lyrics however are pretty dreadful:
"In a forest known as heartbreak
In a clearing in the wood
'cross a pathway called confusion
Toward the garden of delight
You'll reach the river of desire
And meekly try and cross it
While the valley of love
Keeps avoiding you."
But it is a pleasingly hypnotic tune for all that, until around 2:50 when there is a jarring (and to these ears annoying), change in key. This was made, I assume to accommodate the guitar solo, but to me it just spoils what atmosphere the song had built.
The original album recording meandered to a close thereafter, although there was an odd acoustic guitar led coda, which just seemed to exist solely to lead the listener up a dead end.
It was only with the bonus tracks on the 1997 CD remaster of the album did we learn, there was a Paradise/The Spell type thing going on here, for Illusion as originally recorded had a second part called Masquerade. Listening to the two pieces co-joined once more, as nature intended, is actually a pleasant enough experience.
Flipping the vinyl album, back in the day, would have brought the listener to Free Me - by some way the poppiest song on the collection. And, although I do not particularly like the tune - it sounds like an Eastern European Eurovision Song Contest entry - I grudgingly acknowledge Hensley's song structuring abilities here. And it did give the band Top Ten hits in Germany, New Zealand and Switzerland.
Cheat 'n' Lie (more apostrophies!!) has the feel of a song written around a catchy, if decidedly irksome, chorus, with the verses (any old verses) bolted on in the studio. But the band must have liked it, for I can recall hearing it being performed at the September 1977 Edinburgh gig I attended.
The aforementioned US songwriter Jack Williams, who had by this time been invited over to London to live, as "Uriah Heep's first outside in-house songwriter", was given the last two songs on the album.
By some way the better of which is The Dance.
With an almost reggae vibe to it, and Box conjuring up some effective chuggy guitar sound, Lawton makes a superb job of Williams' cryptic lyrics. I just love the lines:
"Maybe it's the dancer
Or maybe it's the dance
The dancer dances."
The album closer Choices is far more complex piece, and far less successful for that. Like a chef who has found themselves with a load of ingredients left over after baking a cake, the band here seem to just throw everything into the mix. With multi-overdubbed guitars, histrionic vocals, and Hensley seemingly squeezing as much keys into the business as possible, the song just does not work at all. It is the weakest track on the album by some distance, and really should have been dropped to make way for Masquerade.
But then again, if you are going to bring a songwriter across the Atlantic, you gotta use him I suppose, the guys must have felt. That being said, Williams contributions were conspicuously absent from the following album.
September 1978 brought Fallen Angel, the final studio entry in the John Lawton era.
But then reality and Mick Box kicks in, and the song morphs into a barely disguised re-write of Stombringer. It is actually a moderately decent rocker, although I am still unsure if the high-pitched middle eight adds or detracts from the business. But what is clear is that by this point UH had abandoned all pretence of being a heavy rock band, and had set their sights on the US AOR market.
Falling in Love is another desperate stab at producing a radio-friendly something or other. Lee Kerslake's drumming drives this one along at a fair old lick, and (dare I say it) Hensley, usually so po-faced with his lyrics injects a modicum of (intended) humour into his scribblings here. But again, it is hard to love this one.
One More Night has Lawton verging into Elvis (or, more appropriately, Les Gray/Shaking Stevens) impression territory. Which is about the sole aspect of interest in this donkey, with Ken Hensley's slide guitar buried way too deep in the mix to maintain anyone's interest in the business.
Put Your Lovin' On Me is yet another instantly disposable hunk of formulaic hokum. Christ, but this album is shit. 💩
Come Back to Me was, apparently, Lee Kerslake's plea to his recently estranged wife. It is a pretty cringeworthy listen, best experienced from behind the sofa. How successful the song was in persuading the lady in question to return to The Bear's arms, I have no idea. But I cannot imagine the line "I know I'll find another love in time" would have helped.
Was any lady's heart ever won back with those words?
Hensley's Whad'ya Say opens side two of the album, and we are clearly in Survivor/Journey/Foreigner territory. I can appreciate the quality song-writing here, but this sort of stuff does nothing for me.
Bolder (and McDonald's) contribution this time around is Save It. Again Lawton sounds not unlike David Coverdale at times, and Box gets the opportunity to riff and solo, but the intriguing "river" lyrics are never really expanded upon, and are soon swamped by the Gumby chorus.
I have to say I looked at my speakers in shocked disbelief when I first heard those "La la la's" at the start of Love or Nothing. But, gradually and incrementally, I actually found myself warming to the song as it progressed. And whilst it all gets a bit messy after the key change around the two minute mark, it is certainly the only tune on the album which left any impression after my first listen through.
And who could fail to love the dreadful pun in the title.
I'm Alive is another dull AOR by-numbers piece from the pen of Lawton. The singer (reputedly) quit the band in response to being unable to get more of his songs onto the album. But it is hard to argue with Gerry Bron's decision on this occasion. That being said Lawton's song A Right to Live, which ended up as an extra on the 1997 Remastered CD is a more than decent listen.
The title track, and album closer Fallen Angel opens with some good old fashioned moog growling over strumming acoustic guitar, and I initially thought the band were going to give us a wee Firefly-type progger to close the album. But once Lawton's insipid vocal begins, all such hopes are dashed. And one quickly realises this is grim, grim stuff.
A fourth album was recorded with John Lawton in late 1979 (Google "The Five Mile Sessions" to track down the recordings, if you are interested), but by the end of that year he was out of the band, and the album never officially released. He was either sacked following a major bust-up with Hensley, resigned of his own volition, or left as a result of a mutually agreed parting of the ways. Take your pick. All three scenarios may be found on t'interweb.
Drummer Lee Kerslake also walked, with at least one interview suggesting a difference of opinion with Gerry Bron being the root cause. Kerslake would enjoy a successful spell with Ozzy Osbourne's band during 1980-81, before falling foul of the formidable (second) Mrs Osbourne.
The drummer would re-join the Heep fold in late 1981, where he would stay until his retiral due to ill health in 2007. I was saddened when I learned in 2020 that the Big Chap had died for, as the more astute readers may have noticed, I named this blog after him.
Or at least, after our mutually embarrassing encounter outside the Usher Hall in Edinburgh in 1977.
I had initially intended to finish this piece with a review of Conquest, the last Uriah Heep album recorded with Ken Hensley, and a collection I had never previously heard. But after listening to a couple of songs from the album, I really could not face it. Instead, I will finish with a few words on Ken Hensley.
I kinda met the man once, as he signed a programme for me. Although he did so without looking at me or the programme.
An extremely talented musician and songwriter whom, I feel, never received anything like the respect he deserved. Part of the problem, of course, was that Gerry Bron's incessant hyping of the band (or intensive promotion, if you prefer) immediately raised the hackles of the music press. Many of whom never let up, even after the band became a success.
His lyrics would, as I have attested above, occasionally annoy me. But a CV containing Look at Yourself, Lady in Black, Tears in My Eyes, The Wizard, Easy Livin', Circle of Hands, Paradise/The Spell, Blind Eye, Tales, Stealin', One Way or Another and Free Me is one to be justifiably proud of.
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