Uriah Heep in the 1970s

By Steve Pilkington and Paul Newton

Incredibly, Uriah Heep have now been active for a full fifty years. However, few would argue that the period which has come to define them the most, and during which they were at their most influential, was from 1970-1980. During this decade, they released an incredible thirteen studio albums and a legendary double live album, as well as having a regular turnaround of musicians in all but the guitar and keyboard roles. This remarkable decade began with the first three albums, as the band sought to find a stable line-up, followed by the classic run begun by the Demons And Wizards album featuring the definitive Box/Hensley/Byron/Kerslake/Thain line-up.

   When charismatic frontman David Byron departed, there was a period of some uncertainty, but still some remarkable music was made. This book, which features a foreword from founding member Paul Newton, is a year-by-year journey through that decade, looking at the albums, the often-gruelling touring schedules and the ups and downs of the relationships within the band. Never quite attaining the sales and success of some of their rivals at the time, Uriah Heep nevertheless released some of the most extraordinary music of the 1970s – and this book takes you through it all.

 

The author: Steve Pilkington is a music journalist, editor and broadcaster. He was Editor in Chief for the Classic Rock Society Magazine Rock Society and is now co-administrator of the rock website Velvet Thunder as well as presenting a weekly internet radio show called A Saucerful Of Prog. Before taking on this work full-time, he spent years writing for fanzines and an Internet music review site on a part-time basis. He has recently published books on Deep Purple and Rainbow, The Rolling Stones and Iron Maiden, all for Sonicbond, and has also written the official biography of legendary guitarist Gordon Giltrap. He lives in Wigan, Lancashire, UK.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sonicbond Publishing
• Release date: Nov 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781789521924

Book preview

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Sonicbond Publishing Limited

www.sonicbondpublishing.co.uk

Email: [e-mail]

First Published in the United Kingdom 2021

First Published in the United States 2021

This digital edition 2022

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright Steve Pilkington 2021

ISBN 978-1-78952-103-0

The right of Steve Pilkington to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Sonicbond Publishing Limited

Printed and bound in England

Graphic design and typesetting: Full Moon Media

Acknowledgements

Firstly, I would like to thank the members of Uriah Heep, who have been so helpful and generous with their time. Paul Newton, for his helpful information, kindly providing some personal photographs and writing a foreword for the book; Ken Hensley, who was also very generous and helpful with his time in talking to me only a relatively short time before his tragic passing; and Mick Box, who I have interviewed on past occasions, and whose friendly, open and expansive conversations have proved of great assistance.

I would also like to thank Stephen Lambe of Sonicbond Publishing, who keeps allowing me to write these things! Will he never learn?

Thanks as well to my wife Janet, who has patiently listened to me reading this text aloud, to aid my spotting of errors!

Also, I would like to thank all of the half-forgotten and unsung men on the Heep journey – Alex Napier, Keith Baker and Iain Clark in particular, who helped lay the foundations.

Acknowledgement is due to Dave Ling’s fine book Wizards And Demons, which supplied quite a number of band quotes for this work, and is an excellent read.

My personal interviews with Ken Hensley and Paul Newton took place in 2020.

My personal interviews with Mick Box took place in 2011 and 2014 on behalf of the Classic Rock Society.

Finally, I’d like to thank all of the many Uriah Heep fans I have spent time and shared listening with since I bought my first Heep album just over 45 years ago. If any of you read this and we’ve lost touch – hi, and I hope you’re still listening!

This book is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Lee Kerslake,

Ken Hensley, David Byron, Gary Thain, Trevor Bolder and John Wetton.

Contents

Foreword – by Paul Newton

Prologue: ‘Umble Origins ...

1970 – Wake Up (Set Your Sights)

Very ‘Eavy … Very ‘Umble

1971 – With The Strength Of A New Day Dawning

Salisbury

Look At Yourself

1972 – Let The Party Carry On

Demons And Wizards

The Magician’s Birthday

1973 – Battles Won & Victory Cheers

Uriah Heep Live

Sweet Freedom

1974 – So Tired

Wonderworld

1975 – Return To Fantasy

Return To Fantasy

1976 – Can’t Keep A Good

Band Down

High And Mighty

1977 – Rollin’ On

Firefly

Innocent Victim

1978 – Falling Angels

Fallen Angel

1979-1980 – It Ain’t Easy

Conquest

Postscript: Box Of Delights – What Happened Next

Appendix One

1970s Playlist

Appendix Two

Heep Roll Of Honour

Foreword – by Paul Newton

Steve contacted me in the autumn of 2020 and explained that he was writing a book on the history of Uriah Heep, and asked if I would be interested in backtracking fifty years to the origins of the band and provide some thoughts, memories and opinions of my time as the bass player through the first three albums, 1969-1971. Talking to Steve convinced me that he was keen to get honest facts and would do a good job of presenting them, and so I confirmed that I would be more than happy to assist. Of course, memories of that time sometimes become a little hazy, and it is not surprising that those of us there at the time sometimes have slightly different recollections. Between us, we have, hopefully, established a fairly accurate overview of all that has taken place, but I apologise for any inaccuracies on my part.

I am writing this in December 2020, nearing the end of what has possibly been one of the worst years in the history of the planet, with everyone across the globe being affected in some way by the pandemic that is upon us, and many lives changed forever. As 2020 was the 50th anniversary of the release of Very ‘Eavy Very ‘Umble, it was to be a very special year for all those who have been connected to the band – especially Mick, Bernie, Phil, Russell and Davey, who continue to work so hard travelling the globe to play the music. Sadly, all tours and celebrations had to be cancelled until the world can function normally again, but we all remain optimistic for the future.

In 1968, when I first joined Mick and David in Spice, it was inconceivable to think that we had created something that would survive as Uriah Heep fifty years on, but here we are. Mick Box has always had the tenacity and drive to maintain this legend, and although, sadly, members have been lost over the years, there is still a band out there and I am immensely proud to have been a small part of this amazing story.

Steve Pilkington has carried out much work and in-depth research for this book, and collated information from band members both old and new to produce an interesting insight into the development and longevity, which has resulted in a well written, interesting and fair story of the band’s development and progression, which was sometimes turbulent and difficult for all concerned, but ultimately constructive. I sincerely thank him for the hours he has devoted to working on this project.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I have and that you may find some answers to questions. Music is a very important factor in many people’s lives and I hope that we have produced and played songs that you enjoy listening to.

Paul Newton

Ledbury

Herefordshire

Prologue: ‘Umble Origins ...

The origins of the band which would become Uriah Heep mainly lie in the line-ups of two late-‘60s bands, Spice, and The Gods, spawning between them most of the key figures in the band’s early development. Firstly, however, let’s go back a little further and look at the musical awakening of the only ever-present member in the 50 years of the Heep existence: Mick Box.

Born in Walthamstow, East London, in 1947, Box was a keen footballer and boxer while still at school, representing London Schoolboys at football (though sadly never his beloved Tottenham Hotspur, for whom he did have trials). For a while, this looked as if it would be his overriding passion and most likely escape from real work, but after seeing a show by Johnny Kidd And The Pirates, a latent interest in music blossomed into an obsession. After persuading his mother to buy him his first electric guitar (a low priced Hofner copy called a Telsten) for £12 from a Walthamstow pawn shop, he never looked back. From such roots are legends grown!

In 1965, the now proficient Box joined his first serious band. Named The Stalkers, they played shows at any parties, weddings or Barmitzvahs that would have them, while Mick worked in a London export firm to keep the wolf from the door – and pay off his guitar! After a while, the band’s singer decided to leave and a significant event took place when the band’s drummer, Roger Penlington, suggested his cousin audition for the gig. The cousin in question was an Essex-born individual named David Garrick, who was to become much better known under the name David Byron.

Hailing from Essex, David had already sung the odd rock and roll standard with The Stalkers after he had partaken of a few pints, and Box remembers him not needing much persuasion: ‘He always had more front than Woolworths’, he was later to remark. Byron – as we shall refer to him immediately to avoid confusion – was actually working as a stockbroker at the time, but he indeed took to the frontman role like a duck to the proverbial water. By 1967, both Box and Byron took the decision to take the plunge and turn professional, something which the remaining Stalkers were unwilling to do. Consequently, they were left looking to form a new band and thus was born of necessity, the original Spice lineup. They brought in bassist, Alf Raynor (followed soon by Barry Green), and a drummer, with the latter being none other than Nigel Pegrum, who was later to find fame behind the kit in the classic lineup of folk-rock band, Steeleye Span. At this point, Mick lived with his mother above a butcher’s shop and, since they couldn’t afford the electricity for the band to practise, they used to sneak down into the shop and play crouched down behind the counter for fear of being caught and potentially evicted! Bizarrely, from such unlikely (and uncomfortable) conditions, some of the songs which would appear on the first Uriah Heep album began to take shape.

The band were getting more and more gigs. But one such show, at Walthamstow Avenue Football Club, featured an on-stage accident which foreshadowed a similar tragic occurrence some years later. Mick Box had gone to grab a microphone when he got a substantial electric shock. Seeing this, Byron rushed over to unplug his guitar, but in doing so received an even greater shock himself which reportedly sent him flying over a table. Both men, with electrical burns, had to go to hospital as a result, but thankfully on this occasion, no permanent harm was done.

Around November 1968, that other key band, The Gods, entered the picture for the first time. Despite being little known today (outside of the odd compilation released on the back of the Heep connection), the band’s various line-ups read like a veritable who’s-who of British 1960s and 1970s rock. As well as future Heep men, Ken Hensley, Lee Kerslake and Paul Newton, the band had Greg Lake in their ranks before he left for King Crimson, and an early line-up even featured future Rolling Stones guitarist, Mick Taylor. Bassist was John Glascock – who would go on to play for several years in Jethro Tull before his untimely death in 1979 – and future Babe Ruth guitarist Alan Shacklock, also passed through their ranks. For the moment, however, we will concentrate on the first man to move from the Gods side of the tree to the Spice side: bassist Paul Newton. The band had just recorded a single for United Artists entitled ‘What About The Music’, and Newton arrived – via a music paper ad – just in time to play on the uninspiringly titled B-Side, ‘In Love’. Released at the end of November, the A-Side was a cover of a song which was later released in 1971 by Northern Soul artist, Billy Harner, while ‘In Love’ – which was a formative Box/Byron composition (credited to Garrick/Box) – was heavier and a little more of a pointer to the Heep recordings to come. The band recorded a few tracks for United Artists over the following few months, though these remained unreleased until 1993 when they appeared as part of the compilation The Lansdowne Tapes.

Aside from his bass playing, another important thing Paul Newton brought to the band was, oddly enough, his father. Paul senior ran a dance hall in Andover, Hampshire, and began getting the band gigs via the contacts he had and arranging return gigs with other venues. He began looking after the band’s affairs, becoming, effectively, their manager, and his assistance was absolutely vital. He embarked on a campaign of letter-writing, which secured the band their first residency, at the Marquee in London, Mick Box claiming in 2002 that without him, the band ‘would not be here now’. Perhaps even more importantly, one of those letters went to someone who was to play an overwhelming part in Heep’s first decade: Gerry Bron.

Bron was involved with Vertigo Records at the time, and also very well connected when it came to arranging gigs, plus he had his own studio space. So Newton’s letter was a smart move, and as luck would have it, Bron happened to decide to read it – largely, he claims because it was five pages long and all written in block capitals! He came along to see the band at a venue called the Blues Loft, in High Wycombe. ‘I agreed to sign them there and then’, he said later, ‘but what we signed was nothing like what the band eventually became’. It was around this time that David Garrick officially became David Byron – surprisingly enough, after a comment made by Paul Newton’s mother! There was another David Garrick on the scene at the time, and he was thinking about changing his name to avoid confusion, so when Mrs Newton happened to remark that he reminded her of the poet Lord Byron, the rest, as they say, was history.

Work on recording what was still planned to be the debut Spice album commenced in July 1969, initially by the Box-Byron-Newton-Pegrum line up. But before the album was completed in April the following year, two more lineup changes, and of course a name change, would take place. The first change was that Nigel Pegrum departed to make way for a hard and feisty Scot named Alex Napier – a man who reportedly had a wife and three children, but insisted to the band for some time that the woman in his flat was his sister! Pegrum was an excellent drummer, but it was decided that his style was a little too light as the band’s music got heavier and more bluesy – he went on to join the progressive band Gnidrolog (an almost-anagram of the Goldring brothers who formed the group, incidentally), before going on to find fame and fortune with Steeleye Span.

As work continued on the album, it was clear that something was lacking in the Spice sound, and it was Gerry Bron who first suggested bringing in a keyboard player – a move agreed by the band, who were big admirers of Vanilla Fudge. What was less universally approved was that, after identifying a schoolteacher named Colin Wood for the position, Bron reportedly offered him the job without consulting anyone else, as Mick Box asserted later. In any case, Wood had teaching duties which precluded him from accepting the position, so, after a short time in which he played keyboards on a couple of tracks, the band were suddenly urgently on the lookout for a full-time keyboard man. Enter Paul Newton’s Gods connection again, as he suggested his old bandmate, Ken Hensley. The most significant recruit to the line-up was about to drop into position.

By mid-1969, The Gods were about to splinter. Singer Cliff Bennett (late of The Rebel Rousers) was looking to form a new band and brought in Hensley, along with John Glascock and Lee Kerslake from The Gods. The band needed a name, though it could be argued that they didn’t necessarily need the name Toe Fat, reportedly decided upon by Bennett along with his manager, in an attempt to choose the most unpalatable name they could think of. A self-titled album was released in 1970, boasting an unforgettable cover image featuring several people on a beach with giant toes superimposed over their heads, though by the time of its release, Hensley had already made the move over to the Spice camp, at the suggestion of his former bandmate, Newton.

Ken Hensley was born in London in 1945, and began playing guitar at the age of 12. Playing his first gig in the less than glamorous sounding Mentmore Pen Factory in Stevenage in 1960, he went through a series of bands – such as The Blue Notes, Ken And The Cousins and Kit And The Saracens – before ascending to The Gods in 1965. Despite his virtuosity on both keyboards and guitar, he had no formal training, though he did concede that it may have been in his blood as his mother was herself a classical pianist.

Almost as soon as Ken arrived in the Spice fold, in the spirit of new names they also realised they wanted a more distinctive one than the somewhat ironically bland