bassist for Uriah Heep?

I'm assuming you mean Gary Thain(RIP)...he was definitely schooled in an R&B vibe.
BTW, Thain was NOT the original bassist in that band.

 

Among the others that have played in Uriah Heep would be John Wetton (on Return to Mystery) and Trevor Bolder (ex-Spiders of Mars and the longest standing player). Gary Thain, though, really defined the band the best. He was a huge influence on my playing. Fluid and funky, with a great sense of phrasing.

 

Gweim-
Who was Uraih Heep's FIRST/original bassist?
Didn't Thain enter on the DEMONS AND WIZARDS album?

 

thain is/was amazing

 

WOW!! Uriah Heep. They have somehow managed to completely disappear from musical history and pop knowledge, but they were fantastic. What happened? How could such a great band get forgotten so easily?

 

I forget their names, but each of the first three Heep albums had a different bass player and drummer.

 

Hawkwind were great. Most people dont even realize that Lemmy was in a band before Motorhead.

 

I have their second album, "Salisbury", in front of me. The bass player is Paul Newton. I'm pretty sure he was on the first three albums.

The guy on the most albums altogether would most likely be Thain or Bolder (sp?). I read in BP or somewhere not too long ago, that Trevor Bolder is playing in Europe with a reunion of somebody - Uriah Heep, I think.

They have a LOT of pretty good albums. They're a good example of one of those bands that "not too many people know that they used to be famous".

 

Paul Newton was the original bassist, but I don't know how many albums he played on. Sadly Gary Thain died shortly after leaving the group in '85. He was quite the player, and the whole band was a lot of fun. o well, showin' my age.

 

Actually, Thain left the band and died much earlier than 1985. I think Wetton came on board somewhere during the late seventies.

 

JWC,

To get back to the original question, which song or album caught your ear? That will enable us to pinpoint which bass player you're referring to.

You know, this thread is bringing back some great memories of my formative bass playing years. I never thought of Gary Thain as a bass monster, but his playing was certainly a large part of Heep's distinctive sound.

 

It was fun to test my memory and knowledge of U.H. trivia. But then I got this bright idea: to find out more, do a web search.

There are lots of Uriah web sites, in fact. I visited http://www.uriah-heep.com (the Official Site). There's a discography, tour info (that's right) a geocities link to every Heep lineup since the beginning in 1969 and LOTS of other info.

This band has had lots of member changes, but for a long time the core of it was (singer) Dave Byron, (keboardist) Ken Hensley) and (guitarist) Mick Box. I'm pretty sure Box is the only original member in the lineup today.

For the record, Gary Thain died in 1975.

Man, I wanna go buy a bunch of albums now!

 

I just discovered Heep this week - man, I love discovering old treasures like that! Great, another fantastic band to listen to!

Indeed, Thain is a fantastic player. I'll definetly pick up all the albums with him on them.

I was also surprised to find out John Wetton played with them for 2 records. I'm starting to develop a lot of respect for his playing lately. The Crimson stuff is great, but he does a pretty decent job getting around the bass on the Heep stuff. Some of the best playing I've heard him do actually.

I still don't have any Bolder era stuff yet, but at least I have lots of new CDs to add to my wishlist.

BTW, does anyone have the King Biscuit Heep CD? I can get that easily enough. How is it?

 

Gary Thain was my best friend from age 13 to 16, we learnt guitar together, and did a paper route together, although we went to different schools. He was in a band with his elder brother Arthur, and they were just playing the covers of the day (1964-1966), and I was in an r n b band playing Mayall etc. At that stage his playing was average, like mine, and he only developed his style after he and the rhythm guitarist from his brother's band split for London. At that stage we lost contact, and he picked up a habit. BTW, we grew up in Christchurch, New Zealand.

 

Paul Newton is a great unsung hero of the electric bass, IMO. I recently got "The Lansdowne Tapes", which is a compilation of early UH tracks, and pre-UH tracks by Spice, which was essentially UH w/o Ken Hensley, and Paul Newton just smokes on the bass. He has a very strong jazz background which is evident.

Gary Thain, however, was dazzling. One of the greatest bass players of 70's rock that you can hear. He had all of Newton's jazz chops, plus R&B. His walking bass lines are brilliant.

 

Uriah Heep is probably the most underrated band of all time. The band just don't get enough media support, that's it... however, Uriah Heep fans are still there... new and old, from all around thw world...

 

No doubt about it, they never had the media support they deserved. I will remain a Heep Freak forever though.
RIP David Byron
RIP Gary Thain

 

Gary Thain was a great player. I love the way he
grooved on "Stealin' ".

One thing that set Heep apart from their better-known contemporaries (Purple, Sabbath, Zeppelin, etc.) was their distinctive high vocal harmonies.