With six number 1 singles (three straight in at the top, the first act to do so since The Beatles) and 17 consecutive top 20 hits, Slade were Britain’s most successful 1970s group based on singles sales. Slade were also a phenomemon live. 

 

Vocalist & guitarist Noddy Holder, guitarist Dave Hill, bassist & violinist Jim Lea and drummer Don Powell had played together since 1966 (initially as The N’ Betweens and then Ambrose Slade) and were seasoned performers by the time of their breakthrough hit in 1971. Slade’s live concerts were something to behold, and this book captures them in performance in the words of over 300 fans, including contributions from Nik Kershaw, Rick Buckler (The Jam), Miles Hunt (The Wonder Stuff), John Robb (The Membranes) and broadcasters Andy Kershaw and Mark Radcliffe, as well as interviews with Slade’s very own Jim, Don and Dave. 

 

The journey goes from the boot-stomping skinhead days of ‘Get Down and Get With It’, through the chart-topping glam rock era of ‘Mama Weer All Crazee Now’ and ‘Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me’, and onto their ultimately unsuccessful mid-’70s attempt to break America before the chicken-in-a-basket career doldrums and a late renaissance following their 1980 Reading Festival appearance before the original line-up called it quits in 1992. 

 

The book includes fan memories and photographs that will make you laugh, cry and be transported back to the early 1970s, when Slade were all over the radio, the TV and the news.

 

This is Slade loud and raucous.

 

Hardback.

 

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Malcolm Wyatt is a Surrey-born music writer and editor who lives in Cornwall with his partner, Jayne. A foster carer with two grown-up daughters, he is the author of Solid Bond In Your Heart: A People’s History Of The Jam (Spenwood Books, 2025), Wild! Wild! Wild! A People’s History of Slade (Spenwood Books, 2023) and This Day in Music’s Guide to The Clash (2018).