A year ago today, the world lost one of the finest voices in hard and heavy music, John Lawton. For most headbangers, Lawton is best known for his work with early German metal pioneers, Lucifer’s Friend. As the years went on, he’d also lend his talents to classic albums from Zar, Rebel, and the legendary Uriah Heep. If anyone was going to fill the massive shoes of David Byron, it was Lawton. Ian Gillan was too busy with his namesake jazz rock band, Ronnie James Dio was butting heads with Ritchie Blackmore in Rainbow, and while I’m sure Rob Halford would’ve jumped at the opportunity, Judas Priest was just getting off the ground. Meanwhile, Lucifer’s Friend had reached a creative stalemate, abandoning their early metal sound for a more AM friendly approach. It was high time for Lawton to let his operatic pipes shine, and he did over the course of 3 phenomenal albums. Today, we pay tribute to Lawton and his era of Heep with our Top 10 John Lawton Era Uriah Heep Songs!
10. “Woman of the Night”
Kicking off our list at #10 is “Woman of the Night”, the opening cut off Heep’s final album with Lawton at the helm, Fallen Angel. By now, Heep reached the same point that Lucifer’s Friend and Black Sabbath had a couple years earlier. Their core sound is still present, but certain elements had definitely been softened to accommodate “the times”. Even at its heaviest moments, Fallen Angel has a slick, radio friendly sheen characteristic of superstar bands like Foreigner and Journey. While the songs aren’t as hard hitting as those on Lawton’s Heep debut, Firefly (1977), and especially the Byron albums, there’s still some shining moments. “Woman of the Night” is the type of high energy opener one would expect of Heep at this point. The guitars bite, Lawton’s vocals take you by force, and that pomp break halfway through is SO late 70s.
9. “Flyin’ High”
Are you having a bad day? Crank this one up and by the time it’s done, you’ll have a giant grin on your face. “Flyin’ High” exudes an abundant jubilation. Its layered harmonies, uplifting melodies, powerful musicianship, and Thin Lizzy-esque swing makes one wondered why it wasn’t a Top 40 hit. Oddly enough, it wasn’t even released as a single, which is odd considering it’s featured on the commercially conscious Innocent Victim (1977). Granted, the folksy “Free Me” became one of Heep’s biggest hits on the euro market, but I’ve always felt “Flyin’ High” should’ve been “the hit” off the album. For me, it always will be!
8. “Been Away Too Long”
As great a song as this is, I’ve always found the title “Been Away Too Long” to be ironic. After all, Heep had just released High and Mighty a year earlier, and Lawton was featured on Lucifer’s Friend’s Mind Exploding, which was also released in ’76. In today’s age of bands going years on end without releasing even a snippet of new music, neither parties involved were truly away for “too long”. But of course, this song isn’t speaking literally about the band’s affairs. It’s a fictitious tale of two lovers reuniting set to a majestic pomp metal soundtrack that wouldn’t sound out of place on an Angel album. Oh yeah, and it kicks ass.
7. “Firefly”
The title track off Heep’s first Lawton era album, “Firefly” is an evocatively beautiful ballad held together by Ken Hensley’s delicate keys and the band’s spellbinding choir vocals. Hensley handles leads on this song, while Lawton sings an octave higher in a subtle falsetto. This is a masterclass in arrangement, and an excellent example of going out with a bang without being heavy. What “Firefly” lacks in metallic muscle, it makes up for in progressive showmanship and sheer epicness. While nothing will surpass the late Lawton and Hensley, I’d love to hear the current Heep lineup dust this one off in a live setting.
6. “Do You Know”
Uriah Heep may very well be the most dynamic band in metal history, or at least in the Top 10 if we were to write such a list. They could execute a dreamy, folk prog ballad with the same confidence as they could a meat and potatoes headbanger like this song, “Do You Know”. On the surface, there’s not much to “Do You Know”. It’s fast, heavy, and aggressive without sacrificing melody and grace. It’s not nearly as multifaceted as suites like “The Magician’s Birthday” and “Salisbury”, but you can’t help but wonder its influence on Priest and the entirety of the NWOBHM just a few short years later.
5. “I’m Alive”
The late 70s were primetime for heavy AOR, or as I like to call it, “radio metal”. Toto, Jefferson Starship, and Rainbow were tearing up the charts with their earworm blend of heavy guitars and pop rock hooks. In an ideal world, so should’ve Uriah Heep. “I’m Alive” showcases this formula in full effect. Mick Box’s riffs have that signature weight to them, but the underlying organs, melodies, and anthemic chorus are begging for your attention. Also, I’m I the only one who hears the similarities between the riffing in the chorus and the riffing in the Cirith Ungol song of the same name? Hmmmmm.
4. “Wise Man”
Ballads are not rare. Ballads that touch your soul are. “Wise Man” falls into the latter category, if only for Lawton’s vocal performance alone. His status as one of the greatest voices of his era was already cemented on Lucifer’s Friend 1970 self titled, thanks to his arsenal of eardrum shattering screams and unsettling wails. Yet never one to rest on his laurels, Lawton continued to push his boundaries, arguably reaching his peak on “Wise Man”. If the unbridled passion of his voice doesn’t move you to tears, you likely don’t have a heart.
3. “Sympathy”
Uriah Heep’s sound is very hard to describe. Your average Rolling Stone consuming dummy will dismiss them as a “knockoff Deep Purple”, simply because of the guitar-organ combo, but that’s where they’re severely wrong. Whereas Purple owed their sound to the blues, R&B, and so forth (amidst classical flourishes, of course), Heep always had a bit of an enigmatic, and dare I say exotic, touch to their sound; an atmospheric approach that wouldn’t be channeled again until the early 80s by bands like Mercyful Fate. This unique aspect of their sound can be heard on “Sympathy”: one of the most unorthodox pop songs ever recorded. The lyrics are cruel, the guitar melodies are foreign, and that closing scream-along passage should deter any mere mortal…yet it hooks us in the same way as an early Beatles song. What kind of black magic is this?!
2. “Free ‘n’ Easy”
Fast and ferocious with an unforgiving bite, “Free ‘n’ Easy” is essentially the Lawton era’s answer to “Easy Livin'”. Hell, it even has the word “Easy” in the song title, but I digress. “Free ‘n’ Easy” is one of those neck snapping proto-speedsters that was bound to dominate the listening rotation of young headbangers who’d unknowingly form the NWOBHM, which in turn gave way to American thrash in the early 80s, which in turn gave way to…well, you get the idea. The point here is that Heep is of equal importance to the evolution of metal as Sabbath and Purple, and it’s about time those on the metallic interweb started acknowledging such.
- “The Hanging Tree”
Pre-social media, pre-internet, and pre-information overload, there must have been a good handful of Heep heads taken aback by the absence of their beloved David Byron come the release of the band’s 1977 album, Firefly. That said, any doubts harbored were likely washed away the second the needle hit the opening grooves of “The Hanging Tree”. If this were a Top 10 Uriah Heep Songs in general list, there’s no doubt in my mind “The Hanging Tree” would make the list. It’s hauntingly heavy in all the right ways, boasting some ominous synths, a simply effective twin guitar solo, and a compelling performance from Lawton. As I said at the beginning, if anyone were to replace Byron, it was Lawton, and he proved his worth from first song, first album. May he rest in eternal power.
Great list, John Lawton rules!