{"id":1106,"date":"2017-11-07T17:22:24","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T17:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=1106"},"modified":"2017-11-07T17:25:11","modified_gmt":"2017-11-07T17:25:11","slug":"from-the-vaults-uhriar-heep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=1106","title":{"rendered":"From the Vaults: Uhriar Heep"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The first time I remember telling my buddy Mitch about Uriah Heep he was either half listening or he was pulling my leg when he responded, \u201cYou\u2019re a heap? \u00a0A heap of what?\u201d \u00a0Heep\u2019s hit <\/span>Easy Living <\/span><\/i>was playing on the radio and I had commented how much I would like to learn this song to play with my band Knockdown. \u00a0It was (and still is) a great song, but sometimes those hits that sound so deceptively easy on radio turn out to be harder to play than one suspects.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Founding Uriah Heep guitarist Mick Box is the only one still standing these days, but with \u2018new\u2019 singer Bernie Shaw (who has already been on board for thirty years), they keep touring. \u00a0Their recording output has greatly diminished since their charting days of the 1970\u2019s, but that they are still drawing crowds at festivals around the world fifty years down the road and they still know how to put on a good show. \u00a0Their latest release came out in 2014 (<\/span>Outsider<\/span><\/i>) and is a good record, but record sales don\u2019t necessarily explain the longevity of a band like Heep.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I gave our guitarist\/human jukebox Ray a copy of <\/span>Easy Living<\/span><\/i> and asked if he could work out an arrangement. \u00a0He came back later and said, \u201cWe can give it a try, but you are going to have to sing it. \u00a0I can\u2019t get anything close to the sound of their lead singer.\u201d \u00a0Previous experience had shown me that Ray could sing anything, so this was the first time he ever fessed up to not being able to sing a song. \u00a0\u201cFair enough,\u201d I said. \u00a0It was a tune that I wanted to learn and previous songs that I had brought to the band ended up to be the ones I sang lead on, so I went to work singing along with David Byron until I had the lyrics and vocal inflections down pat for our next rehearsal.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Uriah Heep\u2019s history is similar to every other band from that era. \u00a0Starting as a cover band called The Stalkers (some sources say Mick Box started with the band Hogwash but he told <\/span>Classic Rock Magazine <\/span><\/i>that his \u201cfirst proper band was The Stalkers\u201d), shifting personnel continued for a number of years until the pieces needed to make it big were in place. \u00a0David Byron (nee: Garrick) and Box were the main songwriters until Box decided his love of the Hammond B-3 sound of The Vanilla Fudge would be just the ticket for the renamed Spice. \u00a0As Spice, Box and Byron decided to perform originals instead of covers and adding Ken Hensley\u2019s songwriting skills (and his vocals, guitar, keyboard contributions) was the next key element to the Heep story. \u00a0When they began to combine their good time bar boogie music with \u00a0extended jams, superior vocal harmonies and lyrical content beyond the \u201cBaby Baby Baby\u201d confines of 1960\u2019s pop music, Heep became a bigger concert draw. \u00a0Road work and exposure on both FM radio and the fledgling MTV fueled record sales that today measure in the millions of copies sold (40 million if you are counting). \u00a0The critics hated the band with one reviewer famously threatening to \u201ckill myself if this band makes it\u201d (and yes they did and no she did not, just to set the record straight). \u00a0Box took it all in stride, even putting some of the \u2018better\u2019 criticisms in their album liner notes. \u00a0\u201cCritics criticise, it\u2019s what they do. \u00a0The people vote with their money. \u00a0They bought the albums and the tickets,\u201d says Box today. \u00a0Drummer Lee Kerslake joined the band in 1971-72 and bassist Gary Thain came on board a year later solidifying what most fans call the \u2018classic\u2019 Uriah Heep lineup. \u00a0Kerslake was a powerhouse drummer but he was also capable of playing intricate patterns that drove the songs. \u00a0His drumming also made Heep songs very hard to duplicate live.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ray and I ran through the lead and background vocals as he showed our bass player the song. \u00a0We had a high school kid with a small electronic organ filling in as we looked for a new keys player. \u00a0Nick\u2019s ears perked up when we started learning the song. \u00a0He loved Uriah Heep and already knew his part so the pieces were falling in place quickly. \u00a0We tried a couple of run throughs and it turned out the only thing that wasn\u2019t working was the drumming. \u00a0My ego went \u201cthud\u201d into my shoes and I tried every which way to replicate anything close to what Kerslake was doing and it just didn\u2019t work. \u00a0Kerslake played <\/span>Easy Living <\/span><\/i>with a shuffling beat in which his left and right hand were essentially playing the same thing. \u00a0I kept thinking, \u201cHow hard can this be?\u201d \u00a0Had anyone walked in to this practice session without knowing we had been playing together for six months, they would have thought, \u201cGood band if they only had a drummer who could play and sing at the same time.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The first cracks in Urian Heep\u2019s road to the top were caused by the twin rock star demons: \u00a0drugs and alcohol. \u00a0Bassist Thain was the first out the door when his drug inflicted frailty and a severe shock received on stage at a show in Texas led to a series of canceled shows. \u00a0Upon returning to the band, he vented publicly about manager Gerry Bron and was subsequently let go late in 1974. \u00a0A year later he died from an overdose of heroin. \u00a0Alcohol and bad advice combined to take lead singer Byron down and then keep him from returning to the band. \u00a0\u00a0David Byron became, to quote early Led Zeppelin Robert Plant\u2019s tongue in cheek description of himself, \u201cThe golden god.\u201d \u00a0When his drinking made him unpredictable, unsteady, and unreliable, he was given the heave-ho. \u00a0Box and Kerslake later visited him and tried to get him back in the band, but following the bad advice of his management team, he declined. \u00a0The combined effects of liver disease and a heart attack claimed Byron early in 1985 at the age of 38. \u00a0Box says he has few regrets about his career in Uriah Heep, but one is losing band members because, \u201cI still believe that had we not driven it so hard and been more compassionate to the people that made it in the first place, it may still have continued. \u00a0That is one regret. \u00a0Everything else, you\u2019ve just got to learn from.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Losing \u2018the voice\u2019 of their hit records has killed more than one band, but Heep carried on. \u00a0Interestingly enough, the so called \u2018classic\u2019 line up only lasted about three years. \u00a0There have been a multitude of bass players (including some recognizable names like John Wetton and Trevor Bolder), at least six vocalists, yet only one guitarist in all this time: \u00a0Mick Box. \u00a0Hensley was the next to go and when he removed his songwriting talents from the band, they went through what Box now calls \u2018the dark period\u2019. \u00a0Despite putting out some weak albums and shifting personnel frequently during the early 1980s, Box kept fighting, even during a couple of days when he was the only member of the band left.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Looking back today, \u00a0I can only think that I must have been trying too hard to play exactly what Kerslake was playing on <\/span>Easy Living<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0I had similar problems learning the tricky little drum intro to Grand Funk Railroad\u2019s <\/span>American Band<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0\u00a0I still can\u2019t quite figure out how Don Brewer is able to get his stick work on the toms and his bass drum pedal work to make it sound like that, but in that case I settled for close enough and we played the song anyway. \u00a0The same difficulty arose when Sledgehammer was learning BTO\u2019s <\/span>Free Wheelin\u2019<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0When I got frustrated with not sounding like Robbie Bachman\u2019s version, guitar player Barry said, \u201cHey, close enough. \u00a0It isn\u2019t like someone will be listening to the record and comparing it to how we play it.\u201d \u00a0True enough, but none of this came to mind when we were trying to learn <\/span>Easy Livin\u2019.<\/span><\/i> \u00a0Nick the keyboard player got us back on track with a radical suggestion: \u00a0\u201cIf this isn\u2019t working, let\u2019s try <\/span>Love Machine<\/span><\/i> (another Heep tune, but one I hadn\u2019t heard at that point). \u00a0It has a neat organ intro (which he demonstrated) and I have a solo section worked out for the middle.\u201d \u00a0Ray agreed and said, \u201cI had figured that one out before the last keyboard player left and this one I can sing,\u201d so we dumped one Heep song for another. \u00a0<\/span>Love Machine <\/span><\/i>came together quickly, so we played it often and let Nick do his organ intro and rave up (both of which got longer and longer each night). \u00a0It wasn\u2019t the song I originally wanted to play, but we had Uriah Heep on our song list so we moved on.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When Mick Box recruited current Heep vocalist Bernie Shaw, the band was still alive, but on life support. \u00a0Box treated the lineup like a new band and started to rebuild their audience based on the same model they had originally used: \u00a0hit the road. \u00a0Purists will say Shaw doesn\u2019t sound like Byron or complain that they stray too far from the original arrangements, but very few bands keep playing their catalog exactly the same way. \u00a0I recently watched a full concert recorded in Europe and if I had any negative thoughts about this being a Uriah Heep cover band with Mick Box in it, they were quickly dispelled. \u00a0Kerslake retired for health reasons in 2007 and Bolder passed away in 2013 leaving Box, Shaw and keyboard player Phil Lanzon making up the core of this version of Uriah Heep.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0After we had been playing <\/span>Love Machine<\/span><\/i> for several months, I actually sat down to listen to the recorded version. \u00a0I laughed out loud when I heard what Kerslake was playing because it was basically the same beat that I was using even though I had not heard the original when Nick and Ray taught it to us. \u00a0The reason it made me laugh? \u00a0The part I was playing was almost beat for beat identical to the pattern that had perplexed me so trying to learn <\/span>Easy Livin\u2019. <\/span><\/i>Okay, it wasn\u2019t beat for beat, but the same drum pattern would have worked in either song.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i>We had a similar experience in The Twig when bass player Mike brought in an arrangement of GFR\u2019s <\/span>Closer to Home (I\u2019m Your Captain).<\/span><\/i> \u00a0He taught Gene the basic chord patterns and ran me through the vocal parts. \u00a0When we started playing it, I just added the beat that fit what Mike and Gene were playing. \u00a0After one high school dance we played, a girl told me, \u201cI like the way you guys play <\/span>Closer to Home<\/span><\/i> better than Grand Funk. \u00a0It is easier to dance to when you guys play it.\u201d \u00a0While flattering, I was a bit confused as to how we could do it better than GFR so I pulled out the album and listened to the original. \u00a0It turned out Brewer\u2019s playing sounded nothing like the beat I was using: \u00a0I played it as a straight 4\/4 time where he used a more syncopated pattern. \u00a0I tried it his way a few times and found it was much harder to sing (and apparently dance to) so I kept doing it \u2018wrong\u2019. \u00a0Of course, whenever a band reinterprets a piece of music live, it is never \u2018wrong\u2019, just \u2018different\u2019. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Knockdown never did go back and learn <\/span>Easy Livin<\/span><\/i>\u2019 as Nick was soon replaced by our new Hammond B-3 player Rich. \u00a0Once I showed Rich the three chord introduction to <\/span>Love Machine<\/span><\/i>, he also enjoyed putting his own spin on the little organ rave up in the middle, but we didn\u2019t think to try and resurrect <\/span>Easy Living. \u00a0<\/span><\/i>If I have occasion to sit down at a keyboard these days, I always play the little three chord intro to <\/span>Love Machine<\/span><\/i> to remind myself that I wasn\u2019t a great piano student, but I did learn enough to make me a better musician. \u00a0Hopefully I didn\u2019t ruffle too many real keyboard player\u2019s feathers when Ken the drummer showed them keyboard parts to some of the stuff we played. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So why didn\u2019t Mick Box just fold the band when the dark period ended and he was the only one left in the band? \u00a0\u201cI\u2019m a fighter. \u00a0I believe if you\u2019ve got good quality musicians and can write great songs, you\u2019ll always win through. \u00a0It never occurred to me to quit, because I started it, why shouldn\u2019t I finish it?\u201d \u00a0I can think of no better way to explain how a band the critics hated and the fans loved survived fifty years in the music business and are still enjoying themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Mick Box leads the Bernie Shaw era Uriah Heep through\u00a0Love Machine.<\/em>\u00a0 It has evolved since the days when the classic version featured David Byron, but it still sounds like Heep to me!