Uriah Heep biography
Uriah Heep are an English rock band formed in London in 1969 and are regarded as one of the seminal hard rock acts of the early 1970s. Twelve of the band's albums have made it to the UK Albums Chart (Return to Fantasy reached #7 in 1975) while of the fifteen Billboard 200 Uriah Heep albums Demons and Wizards was the most successful (#23, 1972). In the late 1970s the band had massive success in Germany, where the "Lady in Black" single was a big hit.
Uriah Heep's audience declined by the 1980s, to the point where they became essentially a cult band in the United Kingdom and United States. The band maintains, though, a significant following and performs at arena-sized venues in the Balkans, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia and Scandinavia. They have sold over 30 million albums worldwide.
History
1967-1971
The band's origins go back to 1967 when Mick Box, who was 20 at the time, formed in Brentwood a band called The Stalkers which started playing in local clubs and pubs. When the band's singer left, drummer Roger Penlington suggested his cousin David Garrick (who knew the band) as a replacement. Box and Garrick instantly formed a songwriting partnership and, having higher musical aspirations than their colleagues, decided to give up their day jobs and go professional. They set up a new band called Spice; it was then that David Garrick changed his second name to Byron. Drummer Alex Napier joined, having answered a music paper ad and bassist Paul Newton of The Gods completed the line-up.
From the very beginning Spice avoided playing covers and, according to Box, "were always striving to do something original". Managed initially by Newton's father, the band climbed their way up to the marquee level, then got signed by Gerry Bron (the Hit Record Productions Ltd.'s boss) who saw the band at the Blues Loft club in High Wycombe. "I thought they were a band I could develop and I took them on that basis", remembered Bron later. He became the band's manager and signed them to Vertigo Records, the newly formed Philips label. The four-piece found themselves booked into the Lansdowne Studios in London, still under the name of Spice. Then the name was changed to that of the well-known character from David Copperfield, Uriah Heep (for, according to biographer Kirk Blows, "Dickens' name being everywhere around Christmas '69 due to it being the hundredth anniversary of his death") and the decision came of widening the sound. "We'd actually recorded half the first album when we decided that keyboards would be good for our sound. I was a big Vanilla Fudge fan, with their Hammond organ and searing guitar on top, and we had David's high vibrato vocals anyway so that's how we decided to shape it", Box recalled. First session player Colin Wood was brought in by Gerry Bron, then Ken Hensley a former Newton's colleague in The Gods who was currently playing guitar in Toe Fat was lined up. "I saw a lot of potential in the group to do something very different", remembered Hensley.
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