An Article About Jim Lea

westen44 · November 19, 2018, 11:52:23 AM

Pretty good, actually.

https://www.musicradar.com/news/slades-jim-lea-i-got-the-job-because-i-didnt-play-like-a-bass-player

Alanko · November 19, 2018, 02:40:23 PM

Mate, when you start a thread like this with a title like that I'm going to assume the dude has just died or something.

westen44 · November 19, 2018, 03:12:00 PM

Quote from: Alanko on November 19, 2018, 02:40:23 PM
Mate, when you start a thread like this with a title like that I'm going to assume the dude has just died or something.

I fixed the title. It really is unfortunate, though, that so many times we do have deaths to post about That's, of course, inevitable, but it seems the last few years there have been an abnormal number of them.

ilan · November 20, 2018, 03:45:00 AM

I liked Slade in my teens, back in the 70's. Jim Lea wrote some great songs. Far Far Away was my favorite, with that bass fill, the bass carries the whole song. I would never have guessed it was an EB0... actually a John Birch replica.

Highlander · November 21, 2018, 12:06:46 PM

Love 'em and got to see them a few times, far back as '74 but not since the 80's... part of my youth...

godofthunder · December 19, 2018, 05:07:12 PM

One of my favorite bass players! Jim is in my top three along with Entwistle and McCartney!

uwe · February 01, 2019, 03:38:22 PM

An unsung hero - except here. Judging from the picture on that last EP, the disease took its toll.

When I first saw it, I wondered whether he was undergoing hormone treatment for a gender change (it wouldn't have surprised me - the introvert he always was). Now I understand that the lack of testosterone is not his choice. Get well, Jim.

westen44 · February 02, 2019, 01:23:05 PM

I just ran across this British site which looks pretty good. Among many other things, they have a spot in which they review classic albums. If you don't already have "Slade Alive!" this makes you want to get it.

https://www.loudersound.com/reviews/slade-slade-alive-album-of-the-week-club-review

uwe · February 08, 2019, 08:07:31 AM

It's a no frills live album with almost only covers (but done in inimitable Slade style), it sounds like a club gig with local heroes returning after they have honed their skills on a zillion gigs. This particular rendition of a Loving Spoonful chestnut is not from the Alive! album, but the song itself is featured there as well in a very similar version.

Same with this Ten Years After track here,

not from Alive!, but contained there as well in a similar performance.

Mind you, this was almost still formative Slade.

They weren't yet glam as you can see by the outfits and hadn't discovered their own skills as songwriters yet (with a huge Lennon-McCartney influence, which they have never denied). They were just a devastatingly good live band with mostly covers at that point in time.

A few years later they were like this ...

(And if I may say so - this above vid is living proof that TV white glare existed and that with an ebony tone - the acoustic guitar and the bass - you could get around it!

)

Noddy Holder's vocal prowess is often underrated, in fact he is a bit of a Brit John Fogerty in that department.

westen44 · February 08, 2019, 10:01:03 AM

It is still baffling that Slade found little success in the U.S., but Quiet Riot was successful with Slade songs, especially "Cum On Feel the Noize." But Jim Lea was accurate in the article where he says Americans never got Slade and that's too bad At the very least we could have been enriched by that Slade Christmas song. I really like it.

4stringer77 · February 09, 2019, 08:09:34 AM

Timing is everything. Quiet Riot rode the cresting wave of hair metal and had the breakout success of MTV to help. Jim was a great musician but maybe he should have pranced around on stage in spandex while licking his fretboard and using both hands over and under to play. Might have helped.

uwe · February 09, 2019, 10:24:48 AM

Yes, Tai Ming, that elusive Chinese fellow. By the time QR emerged, Slade had 15 years of touring life behind them, they were tired.

Noddy Holder observed - when Slade were opening for Humble Pie in the US - along the lines: "The way Steve Marriott would stretch out any song to 20 minutes of endless improvisations and ad-libbing, yet entirely captivate a US stadium audience all the while, that just wasn't us and we never found the knack to do it. But it was what US audiences expected from a rock band at the time and we suffered for it. Instead we become everybody's favourite opening act to work up an audience for the main act."

BTW, in defense of QR, when I first saw them, I was really impressed by their energy, single-mindedness and stage act. I also liked Kevin DuBrow's sneer (and, yes, balding head, though he obviously didn't). That debut is a classic of almost Ramonishly endearing, brainless, but feel-good US pop metal. And as a European, I had of course heard "Noize" more times than I cared to remember in the Slade original version, but I thought QR's own composition of Metal Health (the track) a wonderful escapist mission statement. To this day, that line "I got a mouth like an aaaliiigaaator" draws a blissfully idiotic smile to my face, Paul Stanley would have killed for that.

westen44 · February 09, 2019, 11:27:54 AM

QR took the ball and ran with it. But if Slade didn't quite get the acclaim they deserved, at least Noddy Holder and Jim Lea got their well-deserved royalty checks.

uwe · February 10, 2019, 01:13:50 PM

Indeed, both do well with the annual "Merry X-mas Everybody"-paycheck alone, which is always good for a higher six digit figure in Pound Sterling. And Jim Lea is a neighbour of Senora Ciccone in London, so likely not the worst part of town.

TBird1958 · February 10, 2019, 01:46:56 PM

Quote from: uwe on February 09, 2019, 10:24:48 AM
Yes, Tai Ming, that elusive Chinese fellow. By the time QR emerged, Slade had 15 years of touring life behind them, they were tired.

Noddy Holder observed - when Slade were opening for Humble Pie in the US - along the lines: "The way Steve Marriott would stretch out any song to 20 minutes of endless improvisations and ad-libbing, yet entirely captivate a US stadium audience all the while, that just wasn't us and we never found the knack to do it. But it was what US audiences expected from a rock band at the time and we suffered for it. Instead we become everybody's favourite opening act to work up an audience for the main act."

BTW, in defense of QR, when I first saw them, I was really impressed by their energy, single-mindedness and stage act. I also liked Kevin DuBrow's sneer (and, yes, balding head, though he obviously didn't). That debut is a classic of almost Ramonishly endearing, brainless, but feel-good US pop metal. And as a European, I had of course heard "Noize" more times than I cared to remember in the Slade original version, but I thought QR's own composition of Metal Health (the track) a wonderful escapist mission statement. To this day, that line "I got a mouth like an aaaliiigaaator" draws a blissfully idiotic smile to my face, Paul Stanley would have killed for that.

I need a "like" button!

Lots like to slag QR for covering a couple Slade songs, but I'm sure they (Holder and Lea) didn't push the royalty checks away either - QR made Slade more famous in the U.S. than Slade themselves did.