On this day in 1973, Slade were at no. 1 on the U.K. singles chart with "Merry Xmas Everybody" their sixth chart topper. The song has re-entered the UK charts on eight other occasions. Gibson takes a closer look: Britain's most popular Christmas single, by that archetypal '70s English band Slade was in fact recorded at the end of a very hot 1973 summer in New York. In the neighboring studio was John Lennon putting the finishes touches on his latest opus and Slade borrowed the master's keyboard for their soon-to-be perennial, "Merry Xmas Everybody."
Slade, originally skinheads but later kings of the glam power pop era, were, by 1973, veterans of five #1 U.K singles. They'd been groomed by former Animal and Jimi Hendrix manager Chas Chandler, who found them paying in a club in London. He told Chris Charlesworth of the Melody Maker in 1972, "I went down to see them at the Rasputin club in London, and they knocked me out. I was as impressed with Slade as I was when I first saw Jimi Hendrix. I wanted to find something different from the blues, and Jimi was the same thing. But Slade just had a ball on stage. After watching them work I had to sign them." more on this story
