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Slade

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For other uses, see Slade (disambiguation).

Slade was a British rock band. The band formed in the late 1960s as R&B act, The N'Betweens, and later as the folk-rock act Ambrose Slade, but found great success in the early 1970s, releasing a series of popular singles in a glam rock style. Slade remain one of the most recognisable acts of the glam rock movement, and were, at their peak, the most commercially popular band in the UK. The band is most famous for the song "Merry Christmas Everybody", relased in December 1973 and regularly at Christmas time thereafter; it is now the iconic British Christmas pop song.

During the height of their success, Slade rivalled Wizzard, Sweet, T. Rex, Suzi Quatro, Gary Glitter and even David Bowie. In the UK they achieved 11 top five hits in a three-year span from 1971 to 1974, six of which topped the charts. Respected NME journalist and music critic Eddie Shum, and Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher have both been quoted as saying the band were "Fundamentally more important to the development of music than Radiohead".

Slade's success faded by the mid-1970s, although the group continued to release singles. They enjoyed a comeback in the early 1980s, even managing to enter the charts in the United States, and returned to the UK singles chart in 1991 with a song entitled "Radio Wall of Sound". Slade split up in 1992, although two of the group's original members formed Slade II in 1996.

Slade is most associated with the Black Country in Britain's West Midlands, although the group's members came from Devon, Staffordshire, Walsall and Wolverhampton.


Members

Career

History of the band

The group originally formed in 1966 from the component members of two Midlands bands The Vendors and Steve Brett & The Mavericks and was called the N'Betweens, but initially had little success. In the late 1960s, the band changed its name to Ambrose Slade and hooked up with manager Chas Chandler, former bass player of The Animals and manager of Jimi Hendrix until a short time before Hendrix died. Their name was abbreviated to just "Slade", and the band adopted a "skinhead" look, as an attempt to gain some publicity from what was a newsworthy minority fashion trend of the time.

They later abandoned this idea, due to the unwelcome association with football hooliganism and trouble that accompanied the fashion. They grew their hair long again, and became a part of the glam rock movement, releasing songs with deliberately Black Country-style mis-spelled titles which made them stand out.

This change of direction paid off, and from 1971, the band scored an impressive number of huge-selling hits.

In 1974 Slade made the acclaimed rock movie Flame. Film critic Mark Kermode believed it to be the best rock biopic of all time. The soundtrack album, which was released to tie in with the film, included the top 5 hit "Far far away" and the top 20 hit "How does it feel".

With the advent of punk in the late 1970s, Slade's music became unfashionable and was not considered worthy of radio plays and so their hits largely dried up. They struggled on playing live shows to respectable-sized crowds in clubs and Universities, while waiting for their turn to come again. In August 1980, Ozzy Osbourne's Blizzard Of Oz cancelled a show at Reading and Slade, who had all but disbanded, replaced them. They were the hit of the festival and a new run of chart success followed, though not on the dizzy scale of their 70's heights.

Holder and Lea assumed some production and song writing duties for other acts, as a result of their resurgence. A number of bands and musicians have covered their material over the years.

Slade had another two UK top 10 hits in 1984 with the singles "Run Runaway" and "My Oh My" (#2 UK, #36 US). "Run Runaway" reached #7, which would be their second top 40 hit in the USA, and their first since "Gudbuy T'Jane", which barely made the top 40 in 1972. Despite being adopted by some fans of a harder rock genre, the band split up officially in 1991 when Noddy Holder left after 25 years in the band.

While Slade's attempts at cracking the American market were largely unsuccessful, they left their mark on a large number of US bands who cite Slade as an influence. A cover of Slade's "Cum on Feel the Noize" by metal band Quiet Riot was a smash Top 5 hit in America in 1983. Slade's sound and image influenced a number of American rock groups in the 1970s, particularly KISS, whose bassist Gene Simmons readily admitted that their early song writing ethos, with regards to singles, was loaned from Slade's good-time approach.

Slade are perhaps best remembered by their fans for their critically acclaimed live shows, as much as the long string of hits that they had in the 1970s, 80s and early 90s.

Careers of band members

Noddy Holder went on to become a part time actor, most notably in the nostalgic late 1990s television period comedy The Grimleys, set in the early 1970s. On it, he played music teacher Mr. Holder. In one notable scene he played a Slade song on the guitar, and wistfully wished he had become famous in music. Holder, had in life, been honoured by his country with an MBE in the Honours List for his services to music. He is also an in-demand broadcaster, and has appeared as a guest on a number of television programmes, and as a spokesman on a number of advertisements. Noddy currently [2005] appears as a bi-weekly guest reviewer and presenter on the BBC Radio 2, Mark Radcliffe show, 10:30pm through Midnight, Monday - Thursday.

Jimmy Lea studied psychotherapy, invested in properties, released a number of singles under varying pseudonyms (Greenfields Of Tong, The Dummies, The Clout, Whild, Gang of Angels) and has recently recorded a number of new tracks on his own, many of which remain unreleased.

Dave Hill and Don Powell have continued in successive new versions of Slade, and have released a number of albums and singles, mainly in Europe rather than the UK. Between 1992 and 1997, the band called themselves Slade II, but since then, they have reverted back to simply calling themselves Slade.

The original band's memory was kept alive by comedians Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, who respectfully sent up the band in a number of sketches in one of their TV shows in the late 1990s.

Discography

Albums (selected)

Singles (selected)

  • 1971 "Get Down And Get With It" UK #16
  • 1971 "Coz I Luv You" UK #1
  • 1972 "Look Wot You Dun" UK #4
  • 1972 "Take Me Bak 'Ome" UK #1
  • 1972 "Mama Weer All Crazee Now" UK #1
  • 1972 "Gudbuy t'Jane" UK #2
  • 1973 "Cum on Feel the Noize" UK #1
  • 1973 "Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me" UK #1
  • 1973 "My Friend Stan" UK #2
  • 1973 "Merry Xmas Everybody" (which has re-entered the charts several times since 1973 and is arguably the UK's most famous Christmas song) UK #1
  • 1974 "Everyday" UK #3
  • 1974 "Bangin' Man" UK #3
  • 1974 "Far Far Away" UK #2
  • 1975 "How Does It Feel" UK #15
  • 1975 "Thanks For The Memory (Wham Bam Thank You Mam)" UK #7
  • 1975 "In For A Penny" UK #11
  • 1976 "Let's Call It Quits" UK #11
  • 1976 "Nobody's Fool"
  • 1977 "Gypsy Road Hog" UK #48
  • 1977 "My Baby Left Me / That's Alright Mama" UK #32
  • 1980 "Reading Live EP" UK #44
  • 1981 "We'll Bring The House Down" UK #10
  • 1981 "Lock Up Your Daughters" UK #29
  • 1983 "My Oh My" UK #2
  • 1984 "Run Runaway" UK #7
  • 1984 "All Join Hands" UK #15
  • 1991 "Radio Wall Of Sound" UK #21
  • 1991 "Universe"

In total, Slade had 16 top 20 hits between 1971 and 1976 including six #1s, three #2s and two #3s. No other UK act of the period enjoyed such consistency in the UK top 40 and Slade actually came the closest to emulating Beatles' 22 top ten records in a single decade (1960s). Two of their singles entered the charts at #1, and they sold more singles in the UK than any other group of the 1970s.

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