Music Legends Uriah Heep 2020

192 Pages·2020·41.62 MB·English

SPECIAL EDITION -

@)
WALKS UF @

THE INSIDE STORY OF ROCK'S GREATEST,NAMES

The David Cynon Years

URIAH HEEP IN THE STUDIO AND ON THE ROAD 1970-1976

‘Po

MUSIC LEGENDS READER OFFER
GET 20% OFF ALL CODA RECORDS
RELEASES ON CD AND VINYL

This Special Edition of Music Legends Magazine is sponsured by Cuda Records Lid,
As a valued reader of Music Legends Magazine you are entitled to an exclusive 20%
discount code on all Coda Records relesos on CD and vinyl. To redeem your 20%
discount on any of the great CDs and vinyl albums, jusl go 10 codarecords.co.uk and
‘enter the code MLMPROMO20 on the payment checkout page.

All orders Ihrough codarecords.co.uk fer despatch lo the US, USA, Germany, F
Ihaly and Spain are packed and brought to your door by our fulfilment partner Ay

Please nole this cannot be used in canjunction with any ather ofte

YOU CAN VIEW THE FULL CODA RECORDS
CATALOGUE AT codarecords.co.uk

CODA amazon @

RECORDS LTD
sewcoderecordscont Allende erie
Chapter!
The Spice Boys

Chapter 2
Early, Triumphs and Power Straggles...

Chapter 5

Demonte Wizardry and the Perat Gold Di008 ooo cccccceccrerrvrenseree

Chapter $

Chapin 5
Top: of the Heep...

Chapter 6
Whe Beat and the Worst of Time...

53

lS

Gt

wo GF
hold over so many of us far so long, It is now over fifty years

since the young men collectively known as Uriah Heep first
stepped into a recording studio and here we are still discussing,
dissecting and enjoying the fruits of their labours.

Despite numerous attempts over the years I've never managed to
encapsulate just what makes this music so special. I know it’s the best
there is, I know it's got something to do with the magical, dramatic
‘gothic’ quality of the Uriah Heep sound, but the exact words to
express chat enchanting quality have always eluded me, So this time
round it's time to hand things over to our panel of Heep ‘superfans’
and see if collectively they can get nearer to explaining the source of
the enduring power of Heep music.

Here, in addition to the painstakingly researched and expertly
compiled excerpts from Wizards and Demons ~ The Uriah Heep

q t never ceases to amaze me how this music has retained a
Story by Dave Ling, we have an in-depth track-by-track analysis of
each Heep studio album

Reviewing for us here you will find the most knowledgeable
gathering of Hep aficionados ever assembled. This super
concentrated mass of Heep memory and brain power is the musical
equivalent of a black hole in space sticking in every scrap of Heep-
related wisdom, Here you will find a gravitational pull so strong chat
no single musical detail or piece of Heep trivia has ever managed to
escape their clutches.

‘This mighty assembly of Heep lore masters includes Dave White
(Heep’s webmaster), Alan Hartley (Uriah Heep Appreciation Society
founder), Jeff Perkins (Author of Bor to Perform ~ The Biography of
David Byron), Pete Wharton (a Heep fan since the first album) and
Mike Taylor (who was introduced to Heep at the time of Luok at
Yourself by original bassist Paul Newton)

‘We hope you enjoy reading this as much as we enjoyed bringing it
all rogether here.

Bob Carruthers
Executive Producer
Chapter!
Whe Spic4e Boys

riah Heep’s incredible story has seen more twists and
U turns than the Great Wall of China — and some might

even say that it’s almost as ong. A unique, complex
and fascinating account of human endurance, it’s comprised of
all the classic ingredients, including such emotions as triumph,
agony, acrimony, jealousy, compassion, vanity, indulgence,
tragedy and above alll tenacity, But hopefully, you'll also notice a
generous dash of humour in there as well.

‘The fulcrum of this remarkable tale is Heep’s ever-present guitarist
Mick Box. Faced with the prospect of growing up in the tough East
London suburb of Walthamstow, like many before him, Box soon
realised chat there were ewo ways of moving on to bigger better
things.
‘It's a bit of a cliché, bue it's also true that the only ways of getting
out of the mire were music and spore, he says now. ‘Fortunately, I was
pretty good at both. I played football for London Schoolboys and of
course I'd like to have represented the local team that I supported,
Tottenham Hotspur.

Box is lecting his modesty run away with him here, He was better
than ‘pretty good’ at football. In fact, he actually had trials for the
Spurs.

“Oh yes, I went for all of those, he says. ‘Pat Jennings [a legendary
goalkeeper who'd represented Northern Ireland in two World Cups]
actually trained me back then, He used to love picking me out to cake
shots at him, because I could kick with both feet.

Boxing was another big interest for the young Mick

“Tsuppose it had to be with a name like mine, he chuckles, ‘T
remember when I was in the Second Year at school, me and a couple
of mates used to get on well with all the Fourth Year girls, so of
course the older boys used to hate us. One day three of them trapped
my arms through the railings and kicked seven buckets of shit out
of me. My knackers were the size of footballs for weeks afterwards.
Thad to spend about ten days in bed recovering, and T remember
thinking P’d get my own back on those bastards. I joined a boxing
club as soon as I was berter, and one by one I got each of those kids
back?

Mick soon took a liking to the odd scrap, although not always
to Queensbury Rules, He relates: ‘I even got entered into the ABA
championships. Being from a one-parent family, I didn’t really have
all the proper gear — all I had was a pair of gloves and some shorts
which were far too big. OF course, I had to fight some right flash
herbert who had all the latest stuff, and I got really pissed off with
him for making me look a wally.

‘In the end I lost my rag; I got him in the corner of the ring, nutted
him, and carried on punching him while he was on the floor! I got
dragged off by the referee and chucked out of the hall; I had to walk

5
all the way home with my gloves, vest and shorts still on! Needless to
say, thac was the end of my boxing career”

By chen, the fairer sex were becoming another distraction to studies
at Walthamstow’s William Fitt Secondary School.

“Yeah, I was getting inco other things ~ birds and chat’ says
‘Mick. I remember one time at a party, me and this bird were
having fun on a bunk-bed — how appropriate! ~ when suddenly all
these gatccrashers came in. I jumped up with my trousers round
my ankles, fell off the bunk, got my trousers caught around the
bedpost... and just dangled there upside down, with my chap
hanging our and everything’

Although the incident didn't inhibit Mick’s enthusiasm for the
ladies, ie did coincide with the dawning of an appreciation for music.

‘Td listened to a lot of jazz. when Twas younger, people like Barney
Kessel and Tal Farlow, he epxlains. ‘But pirate radio stations like
Radio Caroline opened up a whole new world for me, and soon a
love of rock music took over. I remember going to see Johnny Kidd
and the Pirates, the band who did Shakin’ All Over, and coming away
thinking they were the dog's bollocks. Having watched him with
that Telecaster, I wanted some of that.’

‘As Mick has already alluded, his father had sadly died when he was
very young, But although money was tight in the Box household, his
mother was able to invest the princely sum of £12 in a first guitar for
her son, Naturally, Mick had been with her when she bought it from
a pawnbroker’s in Walthamstow High Street.

“[ewas a Telsten guitar, a cheap version of the Hofners that were

around at the time, and it was a major expenditure for het,’ he says.
‘Td been searing at it in awe in the shop window for weeks and on the
day she bought it for me we had a litele meeting outside because she
needed to know that I really wanted it. Once I got it home I took it
with me everywhere Lwene, Leven slepe with it under the bed.

‘One of the first solos I learned nate-for-note was a Les Paul song
called Nola, and it took me forever’, adds Mick with a chuckle. “Whac
I didn’t know at the time was that he otiginally played it at half speed
and then doubled it up. So it helped my technique quite alot!”
Realising that there was only so much he could reach himself,
the young Box took guitar lessons from a local tutor. A fast learner,
‘Mick eventually began to feel thac the teacher was holding back his
progress in order to kcep him paying for lessons, What was to prove
more beneficial was hanging around drinking coffee with other
scholars, Besides enjoying the social factor, Mick realised that vital
knowledge about bands, gigs and fellow aspiring musos could be
gleaned from hanging out with his pects.
In 1965, now with five years of musicianship under his belt, the
Stalkers came along, It was with this group that Mick Box would
eventually meet singer David Garrick, later known as David Byron.
By day, Box worked at an export firm in London's Fenchurch Street

to finance his nocturnal activities.
“The Stalkers did rugby clubs, twenty.
Barmitzvahs, weddings ~ anything we were offered,” he remembers
now. ‘Theld down my day job until 'd paid off my guitar, and T was
counting the minutes until I could become a professional musician. I

frst birthday parties,

was so dedicated and focusseds just to save the train fare I'd cycle into
the City from Walthamstow five days a week, I knew what I wanted
todo in life?

‘The crunch came when the vocalist of the Stalkers decided to call
ita day, The band held some auditions to fill the gap. It was drummer
Roger Penlington who suggested that his own cousin might bea
suitable candidate. Byron was working as a stockbroker at the time.
But put him and Box together on a stage and they were dynamite

“The auditions had been held at Roger Penlingon’s house, but
nobody had really impressed me that much, says Mick now. ‘David,
being his cousin, had heard about them and came down. We knew he
could do it with us because we'd already seen him do it.

“He'd sung a few rock ’n’ roll numbers with us while he was tanked
up.’ Mick continues. ‘I think it was Loughton Cricket Club that he

10