Thread: The Non-Classical 'I'm Currently Listening To...' Topic

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Now playing Johnny Cash Sings Hank Williams.

MUSIC IS
Bill Frisell - electric and acoustic guitars, loops, bass, ukulele, music boxes

OKeh

IF MOUNTAINS COULD SING
Terje Rypdal - electric guitars
Bjørn Kjellemyr - bass
Audun Kleive - drums
Terje Tønnesen - violin
Lars Anders Tomter - viola
Øystein Birkeland - cello
Christian Eggen - conductor

ECM

TIME OUTTAKES
Previously Unreleased Takes from the Original 1959 Sessions
The Dave Brubeck Quartet

Brubeck Editions

Originally Posted by pmsummer

TIME OUTTAKES
Previously Unreleased Takes from the Original 1959 Sessions
The Dave Brubeck Quartet

Brubeck Editions

And unsquare dance would be on it...

In the pantheon of rock music, no group makes one feel more self-conscious - more sheepishly apologetic - for admitting to being a fan than Uriah Heep.

Alternating between progressive rock, heavy metal, and straightforward hark rock may have seemed like a good idea at the time but versatility - "neither one nor the other, neither this nor that" - may have done more harm in the long run than good in the "jack of all trades, master of none" sense.

Uriah Heep released "...Very 'Eavy, ...Very 'Umble" in 1970.

The album was generally panned by the mainstream critical press upon its release, although it has since been acknowledged as an early classic of the heavy metal genre.

Rolling Stone magazine's Melissa Mills wrote -

“If this group makes it I’ll have to commit suicide. From the first note you know you don’t want to hear any more. Uriah is watered down, tenth-rate Jethro Tull, only even more boring and inane. UH is composed of five members: vocals, organ, guitar, bass, and drums. They fail to create a distinctive sound tonally; the other factor in their uninteresting style is that everything they play is based on repetitive chord riffs.

According to the enclosed promo information, Uriah Heep spent the past year in the studio, rehearsing and writing songs. No doubt their lack of performing experience contributed to the quality of the record; if they had played live in clubs they would have been thrown off the stage and we’d have been saved the waste of time, money, and vinyl”

... They went on to sell 45 million records... 12 of them purchased by me - From the first album until 1978's "Fallen Angel" which was the last which featured David Byron's replacement John Lawton who had the voice of a rock star but not necessarily the looks of one.



Anyway... skipping to the chase...

John Wetton played bass for Family, King Crimson, and Roxy Music before deciding to join Uriah Heep as a permanent member in 1975.

He stayed for two years and two albums and then left to form "UK" - which starred Wetton, Eddie Jobson, Bill Bruford, and some guy named Allan Holdsworth.

Which is kind of a roundabout way of saying that if someone like John Wetton thought that there was merit to be found in Uriah Heep then there was consequently no reason for anyone to ever feel self-conscious or sheepishly apologetic for being a fan.

And so I'm listening to the two albums which featured John Wetton as the bass player/vocalist/songwriter for UH -

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Uriah Heep - "Return To Fantasy" - 1975

Standout track - "Return To Fantasy" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkqytHMBzq8


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Uriah Heep - "High and Mighty" - 1976

Standout track - "Midnight" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzj1uV0xXzs



Endnote: John Wetton passed away on January 31, 2017.

He had a pretty impressive discography - check it out here -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wetton

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I imagine many thought with the kind of CV John Wetton had he was virtually slumming it by joining Uriah Heep, but as he was at something of a loose end after Roxy Music's 1975 tour no-one can blame him for wanting to carry on working. That said, I for one couldn't blame him for leaving Uriah Heep when he did either - High and Mighty was awful compared to Return to Fantasy.

Originally Posted by elgars ghost

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I imagine many thought with the kind of CV John Wetton had he was virtually slumming it by joining Uriah Heep, but as he was at something of a loose end after Roxy Music's 1975 tour no-one can blame him for wanting to carry on working. That said, I for one couldn't blame him for leaving Uriah Heep when he did either - High and Mighty was awful compared to Return to Fantasy.

https://www.loudersound.com/features...w-road-to-ruin

"High And Mighty still sharply divides the Heep fraternity into two camps, the minority who love it, and the rest. Hensley himself remains enamoured with it, partly because “It felt like making a solo album with the band. Nobody else had any songs, so John Wetton and I found a musical area where we were compatible. But the album was a commercial failure because it bore no real relationship to a Uriah Heep album.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uriah_Heep_(band)

"In July 1976, after the final show of a Spanish tour, Byron was sacked. Soon bassist John Wetton announced he was quitting. Obviously he was not comfortable in the band, nor were his colleagues with him. Hensley later explained, "When he joined, we thought that we could replace a great bass player (Thain) with another great bass player, but we ignored the personality factor, which is crucial. It was like grafting on a new piece of skin but it just didn't work—the body rejected it."

Take a listen to this once again - 45 years after it's release - and see if you still feel the same - To me, it sounds better now than it did then for some odd reason.

In fact, SF, I'll give the whole High and Mighty album a listen when I have a belated UH binge once I've done my punk/new wave/post-punk thing. I bought the album out of loyalty but in truth I never liked it, nor much else which followed. I just think by 1974-75 they had gone as far as they could in terms of being on top of their game, but of those first-wave hard rock/heavy rock bands which sprung up in the late 60s they were in good company.

Wishbone Ash... Yet another group (along with Uriah Heep) to have 12 releases in my collection ranging from 1970's "Wishbone Ash" to 1982's "Twin Barrels Burning".

"Wishbone Ash are noted for their extensive use of harmony twin lead guitars, which had been attracting electric blues bands since Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page had played together in the Yardbirds in 1966.

Their contributions helped Andy Powell and Ted Turner to be voted "Two of the Ten Most Important Guitarists in Rock History" (Traffic magazine 1989), and to appear in the "Top 20 Guitarists of All Time" (Rolling Stone). Melody Maker (1972) described Powell and Turner as "the most interesting two guitar team since the days when Beck and Page graced The Yardbirds". Several notable bands have cited Wishbone Ash as an influence, including Iron Maiden, Van Halen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Thin Lizzy, Metallica, Dream Theater, Overkill and Opeth.

I'm listening to release number 11 - 1981's "Number The Brave" - which brings us right back to John Wetton who went from Family to King Crimson to Roxy Music to Uriah Heep to UK to Jack-Knife and then on to Wishbone Ash.

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Wishbone Ash - "Number the Brave" - 1981



Complex bass lines and lead vocal from Wetton with the classic twin guitars interplay courtesy of Andy Powell and Laurie Wisefield (who replaced Ted Turner in 1974).


And following it with release number 12 - 1982's "Twin Barrels Burning" which, oddly enough, brings us to yet another former Uriah Heep bassist - Trevor Bolden who went from David Bowie (Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, Alladin Sane, and Pin Ups) to a miscellany of solo artists to Uriah Heep (from '76 through '81 and again from 1983 until his death in 2013) - to Wishbone Ash.

(Firefly (1977), Innocent Victim (1977), Fallen Angel (1978), Conquest (1980), Equator (1985), Live in Europe 1979, et al.

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Wishbone Ash - "Twin Barrels Burning" - 1982

"Twin Barrels Burning" was the highest charting Wishbone Ash album in years, reaching No. 22 in the UK Albums Chart. Conversely, it was the final album to appear in that listing to date.

It's a solid album with all of the trademark "Wishbone Ash" elements and it stands the test of time four decades later but rather than feature a selection from this album - If you're really interested you can click on this link -

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...neVRI2ORlp-MJk

and sample any one of the 9 tunes.

I thought that I would instead feature what many consider to be the quintessential Wishbone Ash tune - from 1972's "Argus" -



And thus, in conclusion, Uriah Heep had the privilege of providing a home for three outstanding bassists - original member Gary Thain, John Wetton, and Trevor Bolden. It would have been "providing a home for four outstanding bassists but Jaco Pastorius apparently couldn't get a UK work visa.

I dug out this one for a revisit. Some very tasty Hammond B-3 driven original blues featuring an all star line-up including Duke Robillard, Bernard Purdie, Houston Person, and Johnny B. Gaydon. Sugar Blue plays harp on one track. High end recording too!

Uriah Heep and Wishbone Ash?You're preaching to the choir my son.You're preaching to the choir...