Just the one track for now, but it’s a belter. I first heard How You Like Me Now? by The Heavy on Craig Charles Funk & Soul Show one Saturday night a while back on BBC 6 Music. I’ve mentioned this show before. Charles plays a heady mixture of bona fide stone cold soul classics and wilfully obscurist talc-dusted rattlin’ northern soul groovers, with the odd disco-tinged track flung in for good measure. It’s terrific!
When I first heard How You Like Me Now? I assumed The Heavy were one of those long-forgotten bands who last played together in 1975. How You Like Me Now? sounds like Led Zeppelin gettin’ it on with Stevie Wonder. The st-st-st-staccato James Brown guitar riff. The low-end horns. The rubber band Bootsy bass. The drum groove that kicks the whole thing up a gear just after the first line is sung. The white man sings the blues vocals. The wee pause just after he sings “remember the time” at the start of the second verse. The piano and guitar break down half way through before the inevitable groove kicks in again. I could go on and on. Suffice to say, never have a band been more aptly named.
You can imagine my surprise then when I discovered that The Heavy were actually a real-live modern day group, recording, gigging and releasing records in the here and now. Not only that, but the vocalist is actually a black man who really can sing the blues. I think they’re from the Birmingham area. I’m sure many of you are more familiar with them than I am. I mean, they’ve played on the David Letterman Show and everything. I might just possibly be the last one to this particularly funky party. Do yourself a favour and download How You Like Me Now? Then head out and buy yourself a copy of Great Vengeance and Furious Fire or The House That Dirt Built. That’s clearly what Letterman did, judging by his reaction after they appeared on his show in January last year.
ng News! Update! Breaking News! Update! Breaking News! Update!
OK, maybe not as groundbreaking a story as the Bin Laden’s Bin Killed news that’s currently got everyone in a frenzy, but breaking news nonetheless. As pointed out by sharp-eared reader Clawthing in the Comments section below, the horns and guitar riff in The Heavy track are lifted lock, stock and groovy barrel from Dyke & the Blazers Let A Woman Be A Woman And A Man Be A Man. This is a record I’ve been totally unaware of until now, but it somewhat justifies my belief that The Heavy’s record had a great deal of 70s whiffiness around it. I did know though (and no doubt you’ll also probably be aware) that Prince borrowed the Let A Woman Be A Woman And a Man Be A Man line for his Gett Off single. That’s what I love about this internet thing – you learn something new every day. Well spotted Clawthing. Your prize is in the post.
Plain Or Pan 
The song has featured in a USA Kia Sorento ad (below) for over 2 years now – which is how I 1st heard of it/them (& like you assumed a long lost classic old skool stormer). Er, no! Great description of their sound btw.
What a fantastic band, think I will do as you suggest Letterman did! The guitar riff and horns are taken from another great song, ‘Let a woman be a woman, let a man be a man’ by Dyke and the Blazers.