Been on a 70s Uriah Heep binge & noticed something

Outside of their proggy/hard rock stuff, a lot of their poppier songs/slower songs seem really country/southern rock based. Even one of their proggiest songs (Magician's Birthday) has a main riff that sounds like an abridged version of Sweet Home Alabama (but was actually released a year before.. Skynyrd were Heep fans?! lol). But yeah, I'm just wondering if anyone else has ever noticed the country-vibes in UH's music

as a bass player growing up in cover bands , I found that most of the bands from this era that had a couple guitar players trended towards this sound. Throw Heep and Kansas and Skynrd and 38 Special and UFO and Styx and into a pile .... the layers get a certain density. Add a keyboard and usually one or more of these players also sings so now you have another layer. As a bassist I find it pretty confining, but for radio play you can see how people latch onto these big arrangements. many of the prog stuff we like actually has more space to allow individual instruments to have more elbow room to explore. Not that they all sound alike, but these guitar based bands only have so much framework inside that riff based song. Just my experience.

Never heard the country influence..........maybe revisiting the Heep might be in order.