Heinz

Heinz emerged as a British teen idol whose limited celebrity coincided with Beatlemania’s earliest phase. He first rose to notice as bassist in the Tornados, the instrumental outfit chiefly remembered for its number-one single “Telstar,” before launching a solo recording career. Joe Meek, the celebrated producer, shaped both the Tornados’ sound and the course of Heinz’s subsequent work, establishing the young musician as Meek’s most prominent protégé.

Born Heinz G. Burt in Detmold, Germany, in 1942, he arrived in England at age seven after his family settled in Eastleigh, Hampshire. Throughout the latter half of the 1950s, when not employed as a butcher’s assistant in a grocery, he counted himself among England’s adolescent rock-and-roll enthusiasts. His growing commitment to music prompted him to take up the bass.

In 1961 he played with the local Falcons, a band granted an audition before Joe Meek. Although Meek dismissed the group, he attempted to place Burt in the bass chair of his house band the Outlaws. The musicians refused, prompting Meek to form an entirely new ensemble, the Tornados, featuring Alan Caddy on guitar, Clem Cattini on drums, Roger LaVern on organ, and Heinz on bass. The unit initially backed Billy Fury while also cutting its own records. Their second single, the evocative “Telstar,” became a major international success. Shortly after the 1962 release of the follow-up “Globetrotter,” Meek began issuing solo sides under the name Heinz.

His debut single, “Dreams Do Come True,” displayed the signature Meek production hallmarks—imaginative arrangements, ethereal choruses, sweeping orchestral elements, and heavily compressed sonics—that had recently driven “Telstar” to the top. The second release, “Just Like Eddie,” an exuberant Geoff Goddard composition honoring the late rockabilly figure Eddie Cochran, benefited from outstanding performances by the Outlaws, including a young Ritchie Blackmore on guitar, and from Heinz’s assured vocal. The track climbed into the British Top Five during summer 1963. Its popularity led Heinz to incorporate a full Cochran tribute segment into his live shows. Two well-received EPs, Heinz and Live It Up—the latter tied to a film of the same title in which he appeared—followed, along with the energetic single “Country Boy” and a tour shared with Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas and Bobby Rydell. In March 1964 Heinz issued his first album, Tribute to Eddie, consisting almost wholly of Cochran-associated material.

By the album’s appearance, Beatle-led Merseybeat dominated the scene, and Heinz found it difficult to maintain his footing. Meek could neither compose nor locate suitable material, and even after assembling a new backing group, Heinz & the Wild Boys—which included Blackmore and future Episode Six drummer Mick Underwood, whose performances enhanced later recordings—Heinz failed to replicate the scale of success achieved by “Just Like Eddie.” An attempt to cover Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” during the height of Dylan’s popularity yielded little commercial return. A 1964 label change from Decca to EMI likewise failed to generate significant sales increases. Modest chart entries such as “Diggin’ My Potatoes” appeared, yet by early 1965 his style had clearly lost favor with buyers. Personal and professional disagreements ended his association with Meek. After Meek’s death in 1967, Heinz largely withdrew from music, limiting himself to occasional performances, among them a British rock-and-roll revival show featuring Chuck Berry and a 1990s tribute concert to Meek. Periodic reissues of his catalog continued through both vinyl and compact-disc eras. Over time he came to be regarded as a respected elder statesman of early-1960s British pop and rock, despite receiving scant financial compensation. In later years he contended with motor neuron disease that confined him to a wheelchair during his fifties; he died of a stroke in 2000. Six years afterward, as interest in Meek’s productions revived, Castle Records issued the two-disc anthology Just Like Eddie: The Heinz Anthology. Further rediscovery occurred when Cherry Red acquired Joe Meek’s tape archives—previously purchased at an estate sale by a former member of one of Meek’s bands and gradually digitized—leading to the 2023 five-disc collection Heinz: The White Tornado – The Holloway Road Sessions 1963-1966, which gathered singles, album tracks, demos, alternate takes, and rehearsal recordings.