WISE MAN?According to Ken Hensley, Gerry Bron believed "Wise Man" was written about him (Bron).
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WISE MAN?
According to Ken Hensley, Gerry Bron believed "Wise Man" was written about him
(Bron).
FALLEN ANGEL
With Uriah Heep's North American Warner Brothers contract coming to an
end with Innocent Victim, their next album
was released through Chrysalis. Obviously the band was aiming for
more radio success rather than the trademark Heep sound. The success of
the "Free Me" single turned out to be more
of a curse to be overcome. Although Fallen
Angel included some very nice melodies ("Come Back To Me" was one of Heep's best ballads ever), it was probably the poppiest Heep album ever.
Needless to say, Heep traditionalists were not
happy.
TOO MUCH 'UMBLE, NOT ENOUGH 'EAVY
By the time Uriah Heep released Innocent Victim, it was becoming quite obvious
that the band was drifting far away from their roots. Bron was pushing
Heep to do tunes in a more pop style to capitalize on their
recent success on European (particularly German) singles charts. Mick Box pointed out that
there were some good tunes on Innocent Victim, in particular the rocker, "Free 'N Easy" but he felt
the album was too much humble and too little heavy. The Fallen Angel album was even further
in the pop direction. It was even advertised as an album of singles.
"Come Back To Me" was successful in the German charts, but Fallen Angel was almost totally devoid
of Heep's trademark rock sound. Unrest was beginning to make
itself known within the band!
HEEP IN THE GERMAN CHARTS
Uriah Heep had three singles in the German Top 20 at the same time... "Free Me", "Wise Man", and "Lady In Black".
COME BACK TO ME
"Come Back To Me" is a very meaningful and emotional song that Lee Kerslake wrote about the break-up of his marriage.
LIVE IN EUROPE '79
This Lawton era concert recorded from several concerts in 1979 wasn't released until 1986. The release was soon out of print. In 2000, Live '79 was remastered and released with bonus tracks as a 2 CD set. The sound was much improved over the original release.
FALLEN ANGEL TOUR BOOTLEG
The Fallen Angel Tour Bootleg is just a very bad recording of the 1986 official Live In Europe '79 release with new artwork. The bootleggers made a very poor attempt to hide this fact.
URIAH HEEP RECEIVES GOLDEN LION AWARD
Uriah Heep won the coveted Golden Lion Award for the 1977 Song of the Year with "Lady in Black". The award is the German equivalent of a Grammy Award.
Although "Lady in Black", which reached #1
on the German Singles Chart, was recorded by an earlier
version of the band, Heep did incredibly
well in the Lawton years. "Free Me" also topped the German chart, plus Heep scored major hits with "Wise Man" and "Come Back To Me".
WILLIAMS CONTRIBUTES TO SONGWRITING
Jack Williams, a friend of Ken Hensley, had several songwriting credits during the late 70s. He co-wrote arguably one of Firefly's best
tracks, "The Hanging Tree", with Ken Hensley.
Also Jack wrote "The Dance", "Choices" and "Keep
on Riding" on Innocent Victim.
THE FIVE MILE SESSIONS
Uriah Heep soon was back in the studio to record the fourth Lawton era album with Jimmy Miller serving as producer. This marked the first time someone other than Gerry Bron or Ken Hensley had served as producer for Heep. The recordings were very much in the pop direction of "Fallen Angel". As it turned out, the recordings were shelved and John Lawton was fired from the band. Comments in a Trevor Bolder interview indicate Gerry Bron listened to the tracks and felt the band should start again from scratch. It appeared the sessions would finally be released in 2000 but apparently the band blocked the release. As it stands now, a bootleg from the sessions is available and several tracks have been included on the Time of Revelation boxset. The bootleg reveals some very nice, melodic music. However, the music includes very little of the Heep trademark sound.
