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Content Copyright © 1997 Jay Pearson
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Uriah Heep's output between 1985 and 1995 is often referred to as the band's 'Wilderness Years', and frankly it's easy to see why. The albums were released sporadically, often with little or no promotion. This was not anyone's fault in particular, just a sign of the times as major labels were largely ignoring bands such as Uriah Heep.
The band, much to the credit of Mick Box, persevered and soldiered on, even producing a studio album themselves. They toured relentlessly playing their own brand of wonderful rock to supporters the world over. A few video releases also accompanied the band's sporadic album output, but in general the plot just didn't seem to be working very well.
1990 was the bands twentieth anniversary and this was celebrated by the release of Two Decades Of Rock and Roll, a 3 CD (4 LP) set covering much of the band's output. It was in fact a good anthology of the band even if it didn't offer anything new. To augment Two Decades Of Rock and Roll, another single album was released. Entitled Still 'Eavy Still Proud, it was made up of some popular tracks, albeit re-recorded. It also contained several popular numbers from the recent Raging Silence tour along with a seemingly disparate selection of old studio songs. The album, however has remained in the Heep catalog largely due to the previously unreleased Central Television live recordings.
While working on the remaster program (which has been a mammoth task, already covering 27 CDs if you include the A Time Of Revelation box set), we have had to decide which compilation albums to retain in the catalog, which ones to drop and which ones to compile anew. By and large this wasn't as difficult as it might sound, bearing in mind we wanted to have a comprehensive and cohesive spread of releases offering something new which each remaster where possible. However, when it came to the latter period of the band's recording output we very nearly dropped Still 'Eavy Still Proud. The album was saved primarily due to the fact that we still had a number of interesting and hitherto unreleased versions from the aforementioned wilderness years. This CD was the ideal vehicle to ensure these tracks were made available to the fans.
The original CD was just over 50 minutes in length, and this has now been extended to over 75 minutes on a single CD. The CD has been completely revamped, dropping most of the previously available tracks to make room for previously unavailable material more relevant to the period. We have even included a few rare gems, some of which were unreleased from the period Pete Goalby was lead vocalist in the early 1980's.
Uriah Heep followed up the release of Still 'Eavy Still Proud in 1991 with the studio album Different World but they were not to record in the studio again until the winter of 1994 when they entered the studio to work on material that was to end up as the impressive Sea Of Light album which was released in 1995.
Still 'Eavy Still Proud has really become a retrospective of the band's 'Wilderness Years', with a few previously unreleased gems to boot. Enjoy.
© 1998 Robert M. Corich
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Content Copyright © 1997 Jay Pearson
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