Q/MOJO Special Prog Issue

I bought the mag a couple of weeks ago and thought it was quite interesting, even though it didn't really say anything new about prog rock. Anyway, it was a good effort on the part of those people, seen as they usually sl*g off anything which doesn't belong to the current musical fads. I bought Q a couple of times in the past, but I just didn't find it interesting in the least. On the other hand, I've been reading Classic Rock for a few years now, and I've recently subscribed to it.

Yes, that's one of the more bizarre prog anecdotes! Bryan Ferry also auditioned to join King Crimson...

 

There are two possible theories to the Heep/ Elton John thing:

Uriah Heep's first album featured Nigel Olsson on drums, who was later to join Elton John's band- in fact he's still there now; I saw him playing on Elton's live show at Live8.

The other connection is that Heep's singer, David Byron, sang on various cheapo compilations which featured covers of famous hits, as did Elton John. Among the ones I've heard David do are 'He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother' and 'All Right Now', and they came out on many cheapo albums on labels like Beacon and Windmill.

It would be hilarious if Elton ever did sing on a Heep song- imagine him taking on epics like 'July Morning'!

I think Ian Hunter didn't particularly like Uriah Heep or Ken Hensley's material- he said the songs he'd written in 1977 (for 'Firefly' I reckon) were 'even worse than the songs I already knew'.

David Coverdale also auditioned but Ken Hensley called it 'a horrendous mismatch' and said they'd just sacked one drunk singer (David Byron) and Coverdale walked in with a bottle of alcohol...

Gary Holton, of The Heavy Metal Kids and classic UK TV show 'Auf Wiedersehen Pet' (he played Wayne) was also considered, and I think Jess Roden of long forgotten troupe Bronco was as well.

There is a Deep Purple connection to all this as well- Ritchie Blackmore wanted Paul Rodgers to join DP after Gillan, and even dropped a heavy hint that he wanted Rodgers to join in a mag at the time I think, but he didn't and formed Bad Company. John Lawton also was planning to audition for DP at this time, but the closest he came to any DP work was on the Roger Glover project 'Butterfly Ball' which had most of the '74-5 line up of DP.