Song of the Week – The Wizard, Uriah Heep

Ignored           Obscured            Restored

Uriah Heep, named after a character in Dickens’ David Copperfield, released over 20 studio albums.  Only a few rose in the charts in the US.  The highest chart position and reached in the Billboard 200 was the #23 attained by their 1972 album, Demons and Wizards.

The lead track on that album is “The Wizard” which was also released as a single.

“The Wizard” starts with an acoustic guitar intro then builds into a power ballad.  David Byron’s lead vocal is in a style similar to Styx’s Dennis DeYoung.  The lyrics are typical of ‘70s enchanted, mystical, progressive rock songs like “Stairway to Heaven.”

He was the wizard of a thousand kings
And I chanced to meet him one night wandering
He told me tales and he drank my wine
Me and my magic mankind of feeling fine

The Lord of the Rings or the Carlos Castaneda books come to mind.

The music and lyrics of Demons and Wizards were complemented by the album cover artwork by Roger Dean, most famous for his covers for Yes albums like Fragile and Tales from Topographic Oceans.

Enjoy… until next week.

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