Tag: 1973

Uriah Heep – Stealin’

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The WeekLeave a comment

I’m using the gig I saw just a few weeks back for a bit of further inspiration today as I look at one of the standout songs Uriah Heep played that night. Stealin’ comes from Heep’s sixth album Sweet Freedom, which hit way back in 1973. Today’s song was the lead single from the album. The song had a few low chart positions through Europe. The album did score US gold and UK silver certifications and a handful of desirable chart placements.

This was a period of transition for Uriah Heep. While they remained on independent label Bronze for their native UK affairs, the band were now distributed in the US by major Warner Bros. It also saw the band move away from prog elements and implement more conventional hard rock passages, though the guitar and organ nucleus of the band’s sound was still in tact, as it always has been.

The band’s line-up was unchanged from their prior effort. David Byron handled singing duties, Ken Hensley did keyboards and guitar, Gary Thain was the bassist and Lee Kerslake was on drums. Mick Box played lead guitar and is the only surviving member of this line-up, as well as a present-day member of Heep.

Stealin’ opens with a quiet organ while David Byron spins a tale of a guy who started more crap that what he bargained for. He hooked up with the rancher’s daughter and got chased across the land by the vengeful father. He has to run and only has his life left to save. The lyrics reach their point quite nicely with the line “I was stealing when I should have been buying,” which can be taken literally and also figuratively in the case of the girl he could have courted properly instead of seducing.

The story remains open-ended, we never find out if the guy got away from his predicament or if the pursuers caught up to him. But the song does go into a hefty jam to round everything out. It’s definitely more of an FM radio hard rock thing than the prog-minded fare UH offered up earlier in their career but it’s still a nice, groovy jam.

Stealin’ has been a staple of Uriah Heep setlists since its introduction 51 years ago. It has been played 789 times live, according to setlist.fm, and the band have a summer tour coming up with no signs of slowing down. It was a treat when they broke this one out early in the set when I saw them recently on their just-concluded tour with Saxon. I’ve included a clip from another show on the same tour below.

That’s all for today, hopefully everyone is having a fruitful life of buyin’ rather than stealin’. But it did make for one hell of a song.

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Joe Walsh – Rocky Mountain Way

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week6 Comments

I am still behind on getting posts caught back up, I’ll just skip things here and there until I can truly get caught up and then ahead. No real big deal, I don’t guess.

Anyway – today I want to have a look at Joe Walsh’s breakout song from his solo career. While Walsh’s marquee performance will always be tied to the Eagles and usually Hotel California, there’s little doubt that Rocky Mountain Way is one of a small handful of Walsh’s landmark solo cuts.

The song comes from what turns out to technically be Walsh’s debut solo album The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get in 1973. The album was billed as Joe Walsh, though the players actually went by the name Barnstorm, the group Walsh formed after quitting The James Gang in 1971. Barnstorm released a self-titled record in 1972, which was well-received critically but not a hot seller.

This album would do better business, hitting number 6 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart and receiving a US gold certification. Rocky Mountain Way hit number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100, Walsh’s first true chart success.

Rocky Mountain Way is a blues-rock jam with one big, fat riff guiding it along. The song meanders along at an easy pace, it is not in a hurry to go anywhere and we are all the better for it lingering around. Walsh also employs the talk box in the song, while its use is panned in general it is a great fit in this particular song.

Lyrically, the song is about how Joe’s move from The James Gang to going solo was a good move for him. It was his way of pushing back the regret of leaving a band with success to risk it on his own. Joe relays in a 2021 interview with Howard Stern (embedded below) that he was mowing his lawn in Colorado when he was “knocked back” by the majesty of the Rocky Mountains in the background. He went into the house, suddenly having words for the music he’d already recorded, and also amusingly left his lawnmower running while crafting the lyrics. Walsh also calls this song the greatest solo song he ever wrote in the interview.

Over the years the song has remained as a staple of rock radio and is ever present in entertainment. Baseball’s Colorado Rockies play the song after every home win (insert jokes here), and the Denver Broncos use a Godsmack cover version during their games. The song has appeared in several movies and is also a part of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, having appeared on the rock radio station in GTA 4.

Rocky Mountain Way is Joe Walsh’s most-played live song, according to setlist.fm. Not only that, but it ranks number 8 in terms of the most-played songs on The Eagles list as well. The song even ranks in another artist’s list with no relation to Walsh – Canadian rockers Triumph covered the song and played it a lot on tour and it secures the number 6 spot on Triumph’s live list.

There’s little doubt that Joe Walsh will be most remembered for his contributions with The Eagles, not the least of which is his part in the solo that closes out Hotel California. But his solo material also deserves consideration, and Rocky Mountain Way is perhaps the top of the heap in terms of magnificence. That fat riff places you right in a smoky dive bar of days past and is one of music’s great moments.