Tiggerlion on Slade Alive! released 24/03/1972

Slade spent five years as grunts, churning through the hard yards in the tough pub and club circuit of the Black Country and beyond without a sniff of a hit. That’s despite having Chas Chandler as their manager for two of them, a man with a track record of success with The Animals and Jimi Hendrix. They changed their name from ‘N Betweens to Ambrose Slade to Slade. They even shaved their heads and donned bovver boots to catch the skinhead craze. It didn’t work. Noddy Holder and Don Powell were scary enough with hair. Studio sophistication, a variety of writing combinations, unusual cover versions yielded nothing. However, their live act became legendary. With a supple, muscular rhythm section, a showman lead guitarist, an extraordinarily powerful lead vocalist and a salt-of-the-earth attitude, Slade were a band who connected viscerally with their audience and guaranteed a good time. It was only when they turned to that strength did they find success.

Get Down And Get With It is a call to arms. Perfected over years, it was a centrepiece of the live show, and was captured in the studio in a single take. Slade thought … Continue reading Fifty Years Of Slade Alive!!