Great Britain is the birthplace of many famous hard rock bands . One of these groups is considered Uriah Heep. The discography of this group can impress any lover of classical rock.
The beginning of the way
A group was formed back in 1969 in the heart of England, in its capital. Initially, the musicians called their collective Spice, but a little later they changed their name to Uriah Heep, borrowing it from Charles Dickens, or rather from his book “David Copperfield” (in the translation of the book into Russian, one of the characters is called Uriah Gip). Then the first line-up of the group was formed, and it was at that time that producer D. Bron invited the virtuoso keyboard player Ken Hensley to join Spice.
Two years later, the musicians become world famous. Many critics, and even fans, believe that it was the work of 1971-1973 that most clearly expresses the essence of Uriah Heep. The discography of those years includes such wonderful albums as Demons and Wizards, Look at Yourself, The Magician's Birthday. Moreover, the singles from these albums are still considered classic hard rock.
Success in creativity
Uriah Heep (the discography of the group is quite large) has twelve albums in its arsenal, which were part of the UK Albums Chart. In 1975, the musicians released the single "Return to Fantasy", which had a stunning and fairly long-term success. Since the beginning of the seventies, Uriah Heep music has become popular not only in the UK - in the United States 15 albums released by rockers were included in the Billboard-200, and four songs were on the Billboard-100 list. In Germany, the single “Lady in Black” in the mid-seventies occupied the first lines of the charts for thirteen weeks, and the rest of the songs were also popular there. We can safely say that the 70s were very fruitful for Uriah Heep: only over the years they were able to sell more than 30,000,000 of their albums!
Legendary Band Style
For true hard rock connoisseurs, it will not be difficult to distinguish one rock band from another. Not even by the vocalist’s voice, but by the style of performance, you can easily enough distinguish, for example, Deep Purple from Led Zeppelin. The same can be said of the band Uriah Heep, whose discography is saturated with all sorts of elements from different directions of music. No, this is the same hard rock, but with particles of jazz rock, art rock, heavy metal. Well, the most recognizable style of this team can probably be called the amazing backing vocals. You can not even talk about vocalist David Byron himself . His manner of performing songs, the presence of some drama in his voice will not leave indifferent even those who are far from this musical direction. Some critics claim that the stage experiments of these rockers were even the basis for the same experiments of such a famous rock band as Queen.
Uriah Heep Works
The group members have done quite a lot of work. Over its long century, the group has created more than twenty studio albums, not to mention concert recordings and collections. Many other music groups have performed cover versions of Uriah Heep more than once. It should be noted that the group remained committed to its style throughout almost all of its activities. Released in 2008, an album called Wake The Sleeper has been criticized as preserving the sound of a rock band. Subsequent works also did not disappoint the expectations of the fans: in them you can hear both the inimitable voice of David Byron and the wonderful virtuoso performances of other participants. And those who understand English will be interested in texts filled with meaning.
About Uriah Heep, whose albums are still very popular now, about its members and work, you can talk about each of their single for a long time, however, to feel their play and, without exaggeration, the great that these musicians created, it’s better to listen their songs. One thing is certain: Uriah Heep rightfully takes its place among such classic hard rock sharks like Pink Floyd, Nazareth, Rolling Stones and many others.