As the decade of the 70s rolled around, rock and roll was changing; a heavier, more progressive sound was taking over the masses and new bands were gaining interest.   England's second wave was ready to invade the ever-changing landscape of the industry; bands such as Led Zeppelin, Yes, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and David Bowie & the Spiders from Mars were fast gaining momentum to set the stage for one of the biggest decades in rock history.

David Byron had already developed a unique style, a bold personality and stage charisma that helped mold the bands sound, and establish his own persona.   His vast amount of studio experience had taught him how to use it to his advantage.   His session work was getting plenty of attention and he knew it; regardless if his name was credited or not.   A Marble Arch release using tracks from his Avenue Records sessions simply titled “Chartbusters ’70” entered the British charts on January 31, 1970 where it remained for five weeks, and peeking at #7.   This release featured eight songs with David’s vocals.   Paul Newton said of David, “From the first time I met David he always told me that he would be famous and it proved to be the case.  Had he kept his life more controlled he probably would have been far more famous.   He could have become a very successful solo artist.”

Gerry Bron spent the early part of 1970 pushing the band to put the final touches on their first release.  Most of the material recorded for the first album was already introduced into the live set by Spice, yet some of the tracks were being updated due to Ken Hensley’s arrival. Although Ken couldn’t be included in credits due to contractual obligations, his influence can’t be dismissed; as Paul Newton recently explained, “Ken had a great influence on the band due to his songwriting skills, guitar work and general stage presence.”   With Ken now in the fold, most of the songs were re-recorded to get the right feel.  All traces of Colin Wood were removed except for two songs; ‘Come Away Melinda’ and Wake Up (Set Your Sights).   The first, ‘Come Away Melinda’ was a cover of the original Harry Belafonte song from 1963; the band’s version was so unique and gave insight into how special David’s voice actually was.   The song itself became a favorite of David and Mick from the cover done by Tim Rose in 1967; yet their version was vastly different.  The song was a regular in the Spice live set well before this time.   It unveiled publicly how emotional David’s voice could be and it displayed his true inner self, his comfort zone and the range of feelings that David had the ability to convey vocally.   David was more open on tracks that featured feelings; little of the first set of sessions recorded under the Heep moniker showcased this side of David's abilities.  Mick Box said this about the song, “It was recorded with a mellotron which gave it a great atmosphere, and to this day David Byron’s vocal performance on this song sends chills down my spine.”  As far as David Byron’s contributions to the album, Ken Hensley had this to say, “Dave carries the vocal flag with rare precision and expression and has uncanny flexibility which makes him an instrument of his own.   A ‘Davotron’!   As one of the main writers in the band his contribution is priceless.”   

In the midst of all of this Bron had an idea to change the name of the band as a result of all the celebration for the 100^th anniversary of Charles Dickens death.   The band would take a name from one of the characters in the Dickens’ book ‘David Copperfield’.  Gerry Bron said in a recent 2012 interview in Classic Rock Magazine he got the name from an advertisement placed in Melody Maker by someone seeking employment who he remembered writing, “Experienced roadie seeks work, please call Uriah Heep.”   Bron went on to ad, “I thought, ‘Bloody hell, what a fantastic name’.”  On February 21, 1970 Spice played its last show in support of Deep Purple at St. Mary’s College, Twickenham in West London .  Paul Newton recalled it this way, “Gerry thought that Spice wasn’t such a good name to launch the band with and had come up with Uriah Heep, we didn’t object at all, at that stage the name wasn’t important to us, one seemed just as good as another.”          

The band spent time rehearsing at Fox and Hounds pub in Chiswick, West London; as it seemed a central location for everyone, yet they wouldn’t take the stage under the name Uriah Heep for close to a month.   They debuted in mid March at the Horne Hotel in Braintree, but the official unveiling of the band was on March 20th at Salisbury Tech College in England.  But this was not until making another line-up change which was a mutually agreed upon by all the band members.  Drummer Alex Napier was to become the next to leave the nest, as it was discovered he had a wife and four small children; a conflict to the direction of the band, and a fact hidden when Alex joined the group.  This was the perfect reason to replace the talented but confrontational musician and David Byron was the first to suggest that they be brave enough to off load Napier.  Being ‘brave enough’ was the proper term in this case; as Paul Newton recalled, “He was a very hard man.  He was a good man to have on your side; you wouldn’t want to fall foul of him.   He had scars all over his body from his days in Glasgow.  His best mate ‘Higgie’ was our roadie at the time, he was a pretty hard case but even he was absolutely terrified of Alex!  So we were always a bit wary of him.  When we made the decision to fire Alex we then had to decide who would tell him because we were worried that when we told him somebody would get hurt!  You don’t know how somebody will act when they get fired, especially someone like Alex.  I think that in the end we just sent him up to the office and let him find out from the management, it seemed safer that way.”

An acquaintance from David’s ‘Avenue Records’ sessions, Elton John suggested the newest member to take a stool with the rhythm section.   Nigel ‘Ollie’ Olsson became the second drummer for Uriah Heep.  Mick Box remembers, “Reg Dwight (Elton John) did suggest Nigel to be our drummer, as he had just finished his first album with him.”   Paul Newton recalled, “David knew Nigel Olsson from some session work that they had done together.   Nigel had been working in the Spencer Davies Band but they had stopped touring and he was looking for something to do.”   Olsson ended up being credited with playing on only two songs on the album, ‘Lucy Blues’ and ‘Dreammare’; this is attributed to being so late in the recording sessions and the final addition of these songs to the album.  

With the debut album finally completed, it was time to unleash it on the world, and another Charles Dickens reference became the title, ‘Very ‘Eavy, Very ‘Umble’.  The original idea for the cover was to have David dressed in a tailcoat and top hat to reflect the Dickens’ reference of the name.  After a session of photos it was clear the idea wasn’t working, and as the story goes Mick Box decided to leave and go down to the local pub.   When Mick returned he had gotten hold of a cobweb machine that had been brought in for the sessions.  He pointed it straight at David and seizing the opportunity, tapped David on the shoulder and when he turned around Mick switched the machine on and it covered David’s face with glue.  The photographer snapped the photographs, and in the process captured a surprised but highly upset David Byron.  The cover was born, and as Mick Box recalled the incident, “If there was any doubt at all, yes that is David Byron’s face in cobwebs on the front cover and it was done by my good self with a glue based cobweb machine.  It took three weeks to get out of his hair and impressed David was not!  But it gave us a great cover!”

Vertigo Records released ‘Very ‘Eavy, Very ‘Umble’ in June of 1970.  By time the LP was finally released Uriah Heep were looking for a new drummer once again.  Nigel Olsson had left the band to rejoin Elton John and his last known show would have been on May 19th at the Marquee.  Nigel spoke of his time in the band, “I got the road gig with Uriah Heep, which was a little heavy metal for me. I did nine dates with them, and Elton had this gig at the Roundhouse, which was kind of a prestige gig. It was kind of like the Troubadour would be. And he basically just wanted to do a promo for his record, to get his and Bernie’s songs out for the Eurovision song contest... He said, ‘Would you be interested?’ and I said, ‘Yeah’.”  As remembered by Mick Box, “He became our drummer until Elton had success in the USA and took him back in the middle of a Heep tour of the UK !  Nigel left the dressing room, and I never saw him again even to this day!”  Paul Newton put it best, “Soon after joining us he got an offer from Elton John and it was an offer that from a financial point of view he couldn’t afford to turn down.   Nobody questioned it because although we were all committed to the band, by then if some one like Elton John had made any of us an offer like that we’d have taken it.  We weren’t that stupid not to realize that Elton was going to be very big.”   This was a clean breakaway of sorts; an offer of twice the income and a sound future was too much to overlook.  The next drummer to be introduced into the ever changing incarnation of the band was Keith Baker, who was chosen after multiple auditions.   He joined the group with his main experience to date being part of Bakerloo, which featured Dave ‘Clem’ Clempson on guitar who was soon to replace Peter Frampton in Humble Pie.

Gerry Bron had invited several Mercury Records executives to see the band live during the first UK tour, hoping to land a distribution deal for the United States.  Former Marquee manager and Bron associate Colin Richardson remembered that time, “With regard to Heep signing to Mercury, that was more likely to be related to the fact that they were signed to Phonogram in Europe so Mercury (who later changed their name to Phonogram) would have had first refusal."  So Gerry was successful in getting the band signed to the standard three album deal of the era.  The first album wasn’t released in the US for several months, simply titled ‘Uriah Heep’; the cover displayed a dramatically different feel as it used a 1940s science fiction painting, and it included changes to the track listing on the LP as well.  ‘Bird of Prey’ was the final track on side one, this would have been from an early session including Keith Baker on drums, and it replaced the song ‘Lucy Blues’ which was deleted from the US release.  

The popular feeling is ‘Gypsy’ was the most memorable song from the first LP.  Co-written by David & Mick, the lyrics were odd in certain places; but the feel of the repetitious guitar riff and keyboards gave the music the direction the band was after.  David was later quoted, “That was just a story song about the gypsy religion. Like, if you're in love with a gypsy girl, there's a strong religious thing where you've got to prove yourself as good as they are. They found her making love to this guy so they beat the shit out of him."  Ashley Howe, who worked his way up the ladder with the Bron organization recalled, “Gypsy has been their milestone of a song.  And I don’t know if you could do Gypsy without Byron, he had a wonderful sort of cheeky rock n rollness about him”.   Mike Paxman was quoted with, “I had the first couple of albums which I loved. I was not so aware of all of the albums after that, but I know some of them.  For me, the song that had the blueprint would have to be 'Gypsy'. There are of course many others, but some of the early stuff really defined the style."

Looking back at the results from the first album gives a bit of a disheartening look into what the band would face in the press for the coming years.  First off it didn’t chart in the UK , and in the US it only made a small dent as it charted for four weeks and only reached the #186 position.   The album had some harsh reviews all around, none more noted than that in the US publication, Rolling Stone Magazine.  A review by Mellissa Mills has been quoted many times, the entire lack of knowledge and taste displayed is legend among fans, “If this group makes it I’ll have to commit suicide.   From the first note you know you don’t won’t to hear any more.  Uriah is watered down, tenth-rate Jethro Tull, only even more boring and inane.  UH is composed of five members:  vocals, organ, guitar, bass and drums.  They fail to create a distinctive sound tonally; the other thing in their uninteresting style is that everything they play is based upon repetitive cord riffs.”   As she continued with her journalistic drivel, Melissa added, “According to the enclosed promo information, Uriah Heep spent the last year in the studio rehearsing and writing songs.   No doubt their lack of performing experience contributed to the quality of the record; if they had played live they would have been thrown off the stage and we’d been saved time, money, and vinyl.”  None of this mattered, as the band pushed forward and was driven to continue on.                

With any spare time available, David had a strong drive to keep busy.   His friendship with Peter Lee Stirling provided Byron with many opportunities to do just that. Their work together had progressed from session work into more notable ventures attempts to gain some notoriety under their own names.   Somewhere during the early part of 1970 through contact with John Fiddy, who was handling the music score for a motion picture being filmed; David and Peter  came across an offer to write and record for the production.  In the beginning it’s certain they felt this was a big move forward, and stars were in their eyes.   They wrote three songs together, the lead vocals on the original recordings were done by Peter since David was by now under contract with Bron, but it's evident that David did some backing vocals on the recordings.  The movie, ‘Groupie Girl’ was released in June 1970 in the UK and later in December 1970 as, ‘I Am Groupie’ in the US by American International; it was a cheesy, low budget ‘B’ film, with bad writing, bad acting, and poor production.  The opening credits to the film listed David’s name painted on the side of van as co-writer.  The same is evident with a French version of the film released later in 1973 that was titled, ‘Les Demi-sels de la Perversion’; this particular version, in which the title translates to, ‘The Pimps of Perversion’, contained sex scenes not included in the original film.  By time the original movie soundtrack was released by Polydor Records, it listed the songs David was part of under the artist name of, ‘Virgin Stigma’; and all of David's writing credits were removed.