Uriah Heep

 Along with Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, Uriah Heep helped invent a decorative and uniquely British form of heavy metal with their debut album, … Very ‘Eavy …Very ‘Umble , offered as a self-titled on American shores, historically massive in the invention of a music format that would rule the ‘70s and only intensify in the ‘80s. It us from those roots, that classics such as “Gypsy,” “Bird of Prey” and “Walking in Your Shadow,” that began their ascendance both at home and in the U.S. and culminated in their most enduring works, Demons and Wizards, The Magician’s Birthday and Sweet Freedom, all of which went gold in the states and entered the Billboard Top 40. What is perhaps even more admirable than the love for the band across the globe has been the quality and consistency of the band’s music across a myriad of personnel changes, some of them potentially critical, beginning with the loss of charismatic vocalist David Byron after the band’s ninth studio album, High and Mighty, issued in June 1976. The massive commercial status of Uriah Heep in the ‘70s has led to an urban myth that this is a band plagued by lineup changes. The fact of the matter is, for over 30 years, from 1986 to 2007, Uriah Heep had consisted of patriarch Mick Box on lead guitars, Bernie Shaw on vocals, long-time member Lee Kerslake on Drums, Trevor Bolder on bass and Phil Lanzon keyboards.  Nearly 50 years after the band’s inception, the sun seems to be shining down upon Box and Uriah Heep, who are one of only a small clutch  of heritage acts that are doing everything a band must do to be considered vital, namely touring a worldwide and regularly recording and releasing vital, high quality, exquisitely produced full-length records that continue to capture their fan base’s imagination. For Box, music has never been a competition, rather, spreading their many messages of positivity all over the world and gaining new fans along the way.