Can it be the reason why Uriah Heep never were taken seriously....

Heep's current lead vocalist, Bernie Shaw, is the closest thing to David Byron (I think). I have a live dvd and they sound great.

As many (almost all?) bands, they had their peak back in the early days. For me that means from their first album (with Gypsy) through Sweet Freedom (Stealin', Seven Stars). Salisbury, Look At Yourself, Demons and Wizards, The Magician's Birthday, Live...all of that packed into, what?, four years or so? July Morning, the title track from Look At Yourself...on and on. And here they are, yes, with only Mick Box as an original member, but they've put out 24 studio albums and they continue to make a living playing live. Personally, I think that deserves a bit of respect.

I'm sure most of their live set still focuses on those early years. Nothing unusual in that.

 

That is dead on lol.

 

No he looked stupid - lose the mid-70's pornstar 'stache & he's a poor mans Coverdale which means he's a C- Bobby Plant sounding like Dennis DeYoung after a colonostapy gone horribly wrong ! + a truly terrible name - WTF does Uriah Heep (of sheet!?!) even mean?

 

Still like them and have most records. Byron were one of the main reasons, so I would say no. As others have said, people often looked silly in the '70s.

 

I love those lines and still remember them in my sleep, hehe.

Edit: I bought UH records long before Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin (which I only got into more than a decade later) so they were my preferred hard rock band at the time. Still get goose bumps listening to Gypsy or July Morning, amongst other tunes. ABBA and UH, what a great mix!

 

They were quite big in Germany , in the same league as Black Sabbath and Deep Purple ( at least for a few years)
Their biggest hit here was Lady in black. I've never been a big fan but I think they made one outstanding album which is Demons and wizards , which doesn't sound dated at all. One of my favourite rock albums together with LZ 2, Phenomenon by UFO and Free's Heartbreaker.

 

Okay, I stand corrected. I knew "gold = 1 million" in earlier years but I thought that when the RIAA changed the certifications, they went back and retitled old "gold" releases as "platinum". I guess they didn't do that...

 

This is really well-put, and I agree with every word.

Uriah Heep will always be an acquired taste; some people will be turned off right from the git-go and will never be attracted. Others, once they acclimate to the world contained in their music, start to see the inner logic of that music, and the whole spectacle comes into much sharper focus. I think one reason why they don't resonate well with the old Zep-Sabbath-Purple claque is because their sound was fairly exotic in comparison. It had operatic qualities in places, gothic elements, a kind of on-the-road straightforward quality, and those falsetto harmonies that were unusual in hard rock at the time. They were also a lot more Hammond-centric than their peers (moreso even than Deep Purple, much of the time), which meant their core sound really differed from the usual guitar-based bands. All of these elements might unsettle listeners with fairly Catholic rock listening tastes. But they are also the very same elements which are celebrated by its fans.

I'm not going to go on a lengthy dissertation of the Byron albums again; frankly, they speak for themselves. They are beloved by their hardcore fans, respected among certain types on non-fan, and slagged by the disinterested. Thanks to a handful of rock critic quotes from the early 70's that have been repeated over and over, a lot of people are preconditioned not to like them, and then react poorly to the music when they hear it. However, Uriah Heep fans as a class are not idiots; a lot of them are intelligent and tasteful people. I know some groups with much dumber fans...

Not everything they did worked, but the same can be true for any heavy band of the early 70's. The band had a lot of limitations, but if accepted on their own terms, they have an awful lot of fun moments in their oeuvre.

Regarding the Bernie Shaw era (1986- )...

For me, there's no real comparison between the band now and 40 years ago; like every band, their best work was early in their career. To me, 1970-1976 represents the definitive Heep sound, and the prolific 1971-1973 era was the peak by far. However, I can still be engaged by the band even now, even if I am no longer a flag-waving fan.

I think when Hensley left the band, their shift to NWOBHM style quasi-metal was a smart move at the time, even if it eliminated the Heepiness from their music. It wasn't the same Heep sound anymore, but it enabled them to rebuild an audience; how many bands would have survived the breakdown Heep did in 1980, when only Mick Box remained, let alone build a new following? Their relentless touring in the most backwater places helped make sure they had enough to eat, and also honed their skills considerably. To me, the replacement of Peter Goalby with Bernie Shaw was also a smart move, once the metal had played itself out. Shaw was the first singer the band had (and they've had five after Byron) who could bring back the epic vocal qualities Byron brought to their best material. The band in the 90's-00's was pretty good, at least live (the albums are very spotty, but inoffensive); Trevor Bolder was a good bassist with some of Gary Thain's qualities, Lee Kerslake was back, Phil Lanzon was no Ken Hensley, but was very capable nonetheless. Mick Box was still Mick Box. They seemed to have come to the realization that their fans wanted a classic Heep-like sound, which the band has approximated to varying degrees, to best effect on Wake the Sleeper (2008). Instead of doing soft-rock as a sideline, now they do AOR-style dad-rock as a sideline, which is a small net gain.

I'm not enough of a Heep fanatic to really follow their post-Byron career closely, and I do miss Ken Hensley on their albums. I'm not really a dad-rock guy, and they have lost much of their uniqueness. But I think they are still worthy of respect. They had a unchanging lineup for 21 years (ending with the health-related withdrawal of Kerslake in 2007, and the cancer death of Bolder in 2013) Even now, there aren't a lot of lineups that have lasted 21 years in rock. They have a rabid core fanbase, who throw Heepfests just like Beatlefests (with Heep often in attendance) How many bands get those? They still have good solid songs, if not the epics anymore. I very seldom play their post-Byron albums in full, but I'll throw on a stray track now and then and sometimes get impressed... I include token moments from all of their albums if I make a Heep anthology CD

I really think they've earned the right to not be summarily dismissed and scoffed at, even if they weren't a great group. They've done better than many.

Here's a good Shaw-era track; I'd love to hear Byron singing this one, although no dis to Bernie who is excellent on it.

Uriah Heep - What Kind of God? (2008)

 

Isn't it because of Spinal Tap?

 

He was not the most handsome of front men from the era, IMHO of course.

 

Uriah Heep was a regular play back in '72 !

They were great.

A really heavy band at the time. I dug em.

Zep, Black Sabbath, DP, Stones, Zappa, Floyd, James Gang, UH. Really big in Japan too. UH played all the time in the bars and bar/music coffee shops.

They had their time in the 'spotlight'. Seems like they just kind of faded away.

 

Plant was handsome and sexy? Alrighty! To me he looked like a chick, or a transgender on stage.
Gillan "looked wild" is quite ambiguous. What does "looked wild" mean to you?
Ozzy looked like a muppet ...perhaps a cool/crazy muppet.

As for Byron ...well his hair hasn't aged well. Sad fact.
There's much to be said about the right name and the right look. History is cruel. Sadly, the music sometimes is the least important factor. See Grammy Awards.

 

People seem to say stuff like this a lot now but back in the 70's, the only people that I remember saying Plant "looked like a girl" were people my parent's age who reflexively thought any man with long hair "looked like a girl." They said the same **** about Gillan. However, I admit, I've poked fun at supposedly "hyper-masculine" Robert Plant and his little girl's blouses, but I didn't really notice in the 70's.

 

No mistaken Byron for a girl.

 

True. I think people sometimes forget that mustaches were pretty big (actually and culturally) in the 70's!

 

Hmm... THESE guys seemed to do OK after looking ridiculous
... so I suppose it must've been HEEP's music then.

 

Plant may have been sporting tiny girl's blouses, but those coupled with the tight pants made it pretty clear he was a properly equipped XY all the way!

 

Perhaps if Heep's classic line up had managed to stay intact until the glam seasons of the 70's had passed, they might be more well regarded today!

 

Great band for their first five albums or so and then they hit the wall in terms of creativity. Much like Deep Purple, they couldn't keep a stable line-up and the loss of Gary Thain, Byron, and Hensley (their chief songwriter) hurt them badly. They just didn't have the songs for the most part.

 

The thing about RUSH is that they followed trends to stay relevant.

 

It's not RUsH?

 

Errm... they got their name from a Charles Dickens' character. Thought that might have been made clear earlier in the thread. Wikipedia is your friend.

 

And they were awesome. That helped!

 

Hensley formed The Gods with Mick Taylor (before Taylor went to the Bluesbreakers). He also played with Paul Kossoff and Simon Kirke (or they did with him on his demos for his solo album Proud Words on a Dusty Shelf. Not sure if they're on the actual album, but I have it on From Time to Time).

Heep recorded Gypsy in the studio adjoining Deep Purple ('69 or '70).

Just a comment on the idea that a rock fan couldn't like both/all Purple/Zeppelin and Heep. Total nonsense. I, for one, did.

I moved on to other bands after Sweet Freedom, so 1973?...but picked up A Time of Revelation box set. And Hensley's solo anthology From Time to Time, probably about the same time. From that I can see I didn't miss much (per my interests) but it seems they picked up again with Sea of Light ('95?).

There was one period when they went pop (tail end of Hensley era) and then heavy metal. But, again, I just know a bit about that long time frame because of the box set. It's not my cup of tea.

In short, to still be making music 45 years on is a hell of an accomplishment. Note: according to box set, they had 30 million records sold through 1996. (Worldwide).