BBC1 (Live 1969-1970)

Here we have Slade before the hits: raw, hard rocking and high octane. Announced by Brian Matthews in 1969 as “Britain’s first skinhead group”, the Black Country rockers deliver fifteen tracks with great gusto, from the self-penned Know Who You Are, to covers of Traffic, Moody Blues and Beatles.

This LP of BBC sessions captures the group described by Matthews as “four guys with short hair, heavy boots and big beat”, in all their howling, stomping glory; here are Slade banging out rockers live, and (a year or so) before they become the biggest pop phenomenon since Beatlemania.