DON POWELL
Donald George Powell born on 10th September 1946
at Bilston, Staffordshire, England
Drums
1970
Foundation member of Slade in 1966 with guitarist Dave Hill.
Dave and Don formed also Slade II in 1992 and Slade (II)
is still touring very successfully mostly in Europe.
pictures copyright@ Don Powell FanClub
PICTURES GALERIE 1 HERE
LIVE ON STAGE
2004-200
PICTURES GALERIE 2 HERE
LIVE ON STAGE
2007 - 2008Membe
PICTURES GALERIE 3 HERE
LIVE ON STAGE
2009
PICTURES GALERIE 4 HERE
LIVE ON STAGE
2010
Don Powell on video: Lennon memorial concert 8.12.2010 Århus, Denmark
Don Powell alive at John Lennon Memorial concert on 8th December 2010 in Århus, Denmark presented by Danish Rock Museum & Nils Røddig. Singer / performer Lucas Alexander sings a live medley of The Beatles songs "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band", "Come Together" & "Get Back" and is joined on stage by legendary "SLADE" drummer Don Powell and the band "Soul Meeting" and Jakob Baumgartner ("På Slaget 12").
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKLatXvGsRo
You can read the latest interview from Lise Lyng Falkenberg
with Don at her Don Powell interviews blog: HERE
The following message Lise Lyng Falkenberg
sent to the International Slade Mailiglist:
Don in musical
The successful musical "Oliver T." is now being staged for the second time at the Danish Team Theatre in the town of Herning, Denmark.
And this time Don appears as guest star on certain nights!
The September shows featuring Don are already sold out, but you can still get tickets for the October shows on the 12, 16, 17, 18 and 19 of October.
If you want to experience Don on drums in this musical combining the story-line of Oliver Twist with the music of Slade, you can order tickets at
www.herningbilletten.dk/teater
Charles Dickens med et twist. Nydramatisering af historien om plejehjemsbarnet Oliver Twist, der flygter til storbyen for at finde sin rigtige familie.
Hør 80’er-ikonet Allan Mortensen fortolke Slade-musik i denne crossover mellem glitterrock og teater.
Trommeslager fra Slade, Don Powell, er special guest star på udvalgte forestillinger.
Click on "Oliver T. efterarsferie".
Also check out the theatre's homepage at www.teamteatret.dk
Vuokatti/Finland 08th April 2006 Don visited us in our hotelroom
Don makes promotion for his interview at RMN Radio
Finally you can hear one of the tracks that came out of the studio-session between
Don and Danish band The Guv'nors on January 7th this year.
At the moment their version of "Raining In My Champagne" can be found on
Lise set up this deal between Don and the band and she was present when they recorded.
The photo you can see on The Guv'nors myspace-site is hers and you can read a small account of what happened that day on her blog:
www.bigboyzbignoize.blogspot.com/2007/01/new-don-powell-recordings.html
Thanks for the message to Lise Lyng Falkenberg
Birthday-cake for Don at La Hulpe
HAPPY BIRTHDAY for DON POWELL 2005
on the 10th September 2005 at La Hulpe / Belgium
more you can read and watch here:
MESSAGE FROM DON POWELL September 2005
Hello again Fans!
I have just received the following message from DON POWELL, regarding his birthday a few days ago.
I would also like if you could do me a favour and thank all the fans at the concert for giving me such a wonderful birthday!!!
Everything was very moving, with the cake and presents, I am very thankfull to you all !!!!
Many thanks, for a wonderful Birthday!!!!!
Kind Regards,
Don Powell
DON PROMOTING COLOURS OF LIFE CHARITY PROJECT IN 2006
Don Powell made promotion for our charity project "COLOURS OF LIFE" in Germany .
This pictures I´ve got from Barry Newby - the manager of T.Rex - a celebration of Marc and Mickey " . They played together with Slade in Germany at the 19. August 2006 at the" Legends Of Rock Festiva"l in Waltershausen near Erfurt.
Thanks so much to Don
RMNRADIO INTERVIEW JULY 2006
RMNradio Radio Paletti's Don Powell interview at www.rmnradio.de
on the 15th July 2006 with Paletti and Henni, in a connection work with Monika.
BIOGRAPHY IN DANISH ON-LINE DRUMMERS MAGAZINE
Danish writer and freelance journalist Lise Lyng Falkenberg
wrote a biography on Don Powell in that was released in
Danish On-line Drummers magazine in 2006.
"The Danish on-line drummers magazine "Trommeslageren" has finally up-loaded
a bio on Don which Lise Lyng Falkenberg
made in September last year. For those of you who read Danish
you can find it at:
http://www.trommeslageren.dk/pages/drummers.php?id=dp"
Thanks so much to Lise, keep on this very great work !!
*** HONOUR FROM A DRUMMER COLLEAGUE
Under the cathegorie " Interessante Drummer " Klaus Ruple from Germany
wants to create a special part also for Don Powell:
WITH DON BACKSTAGE
pictures copyright@ Rudi Breiteneicher, Germany
SLADE promotor
More pictures >>> HERE
Did You Mean; Don Powell
Did you mean about Don Powell:
Donald George Powell, born on September 10, 1946 in Bilston, Staffordshire, England, was a drummer who founded the British glam rock group Slade.
As a child Don Powell joined the Boy Scouts where he became interested in the drums after being asked to join the band on a Sunday morning parade. He worked in a small foundry before turning professional as a drummer.
Powell became a member of The Vendors, a band that guitarist Dave Hill later joined. The Vendors became the N`Betweens and violinst/bassplayer Jimmy Lea got in at an audition. Powell now spotted Noddy Holder playing with Steve Brett & The Mavericks and he and Hill got Holder to join the N`Betweens. They regrouped as Ambrose Slade, changed the name to Slade and the success began.
Powell was the wit of the group and considered one of rocks` best drummers. He co-wrote a number of Slade`s earlier songs, mainly with Jim Lea. Many of them can be found on the 1970 Slade album "Play it loud". He also co-wrote one of Slade`s top 5 hits "Look wot you dun" with Holder/Lea in 1972.
In 1973, when Slade were immensely popular in Europe, Powell had a serious car crash in which 20-year-old girlfriend Angela was killed and Powell was badly injured. Surgeons had to drill into his skull to ease the internal pressure. He eventually pulled through, finding the best therapy to be work. When top 5 hit "My friend Stan" was recorded in 1973, Powell was still walking with the aid of a stick and had to be lifted onto his drum-kit. The accident left Powell with no senses of taste and smell and to this day he has severe problems with his memory.
When Slade split up in 1991 Don Powell owned and operated an antique import/export company before joining the band Slade II in 1993 with Dave Hill and singer Steve Whalley among others. The band is still touring Europe and has released the albums "Keep on Rockin`" and "Cum On Let`s Party!". The name of the band was shortened back to Slade in 1997. In 2000 Powell had a small cameo role in the BBCersion of Lorna Doone.
Powell married BBC-reporter Joan Komlosy in 1997. The marriage didn`t last and since 2000 he has a Danish girlfriend. Powell`s home is in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, England.
http://www.did-you-mean.com/Don_Powell_9070.html
K.O.R. - Ilpo
*** GOLDEN AWARD FOR THE VERY BEST OF SLADE
Don has just been given a Golden Award for more than
100.000 copies sold of the double CD/DVD The Very Best Of Slade.
Thanks to Philippe from www.amazingslade.net
Stage setter who put on hit shows
By John Ogden
Mar 9, 2004, 10:33
It seemed a long way to London in Maurice Jones' beige Morris Mini-van way back in 1965, and even further going back home again to Wolverhampton late at night after a mentally draining first recording session for his young band, The 'N Betweens.
But it was nothing to how far Big Mo travelled afterwards - from Black Country pub shows to the world's biggest rock concert ever: Live Aid.
His mode of transport has changed for the better, too - including his luxury three-cabin sea cruiser - but back then Maurice's dream of a second-hand Jag seemed a long way away as he and I pootled down the M1 to where the nucleus of Slade were due to cut their first record. No-one then could have guessed the influence that Dave Hill, Don Powell, and Maurice himself were to have on rock in the future.
Born in Wednesbury, Maurice left school to work at John Thompsons, but it wasn't long before the public phone at the Bilston works became his first office, as he set himself up as a booker for a few local pubs.
He'd always liked rock and roll, Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran being his favourites, and he took on a band called Vince Knight and The Summits, having worked out that managing a band would not only get him into gigs free - it might make him some money.
Screamin'
It was right at the start of the blues boom, and he also got a job making sandwiches at the Whisky A Go Go, in Birmingham so he could see the likes of Screamin' Jay Hawkins and other stars.
His fortunes really changed thanks to my pop column predecessor, the late Dick Wilson, who told Maurice that a young band called Johnny Travelle and The Vendors were worth looking at.
Maurice saw them at the Pipe Hall pub in Bilston, snapped them up, and told them to change their name to The In Betweens - "I think their fan club secretary, Carol, changed the In to 'N."
With five or six regular concert venues to book, including the Casino Club, Walsall, the Wheel at Worfield, and Walsall Co-op, he left Thompsons at the age of 19 to work for the Astra Agency in Waterloo road, Wolverhampton.
"I was earning £3.13 shillings a week as an apprentice, and Astra offered me £12 a week to work for them."
He took on another hard-to-book band in The Soul Seekers, a tougher, more blues-based outfit, because he liked style of music, and once again had to send them far afield to get work.
Eventually, he realised that management was not his forte. "It takes a very special kind of person," he says.
They were reunited when Slade played at the Reading Festival as a last-minute replacement for Ozzy Osbourne.
Says Maurice: "I went down to see Def Leopard, who I had an interest in, and Slade destroyed them that day, no-one could follow them, and I put them on at the Monsters of Rock festival at Donington the next year, and some theatre concerts after that.
"I spent a lot of time in the nineties badgering Noddy to play again, because they could have played the NEC, and I still reckon they could still go out and be as strong as they were in their heyday. "
Though now almost exclusively a booker, and promoting major concerts at the Civic Hall and Walsall Town Hall, Maurice was still involved with a number of bands, handing out advice and guidance, but mainly trying to get them out and about, here and in Europe.
"Then I left Astra to go and work with The Dodger (Roger Allen) which was . . . enlightening. He was very powerful, had all the venues and the bands, but they were continually playing the same circuit, and it wasn't going to last, so I went in to open it up, and he paid me a £1,000 signing-on fee, which was an awful lot of money in those days.
"However I'd just borrowed £1,000 off somebody to buy a Jaguar, so I had to pay him back right away - but now I had the Jag!"
It wasn't too long before the agencies merged again, and Maurice really came into his own when Astra opened Club Lafayette, which featured a range of bands on different nights of the week.
"That was the only time I saw Led Zeppelin," he says. "They were amazing; unbelievable. I remember paying them £75 against 60 per cent of the door and they left with £160, and within a week I was sat outside Peter Grant's office in London to try to book them again and I never even got to see him."
Lafayette manager George Maddocks credits Maurice's knowledge of the group scene for the now legendary line-up of top groups who played there.
In 1977 he founded his own booking agency MCP - Midland Concert Promotions. "I wanted to promote concerts and Astra couldn't finance it," he says.
Promotion
It was a struggle for a time: his first promotion featured the Black Country Night Out team, and they, along with Judas Priest, AC/DC and Jasper Carrott gave MCP the finance to promote up and coming bands such as Ultravox, Dire Straits and The Boomtown Rats.
He remembers losing money on a concert featuring The Police and U2 - another band no-one had heard of. "We went with a lot of new bands, because established promoters wouldn't take the risks, so we started to break the mould."
Throughout his career, including over 10,000 MCP concerts, he has been, first and foremost, a rock fan, famed for his honesty to bands.
It was for this reason that his phone rang early in 1985, and the voice at the other end said: "Maurice, it's Bob Geldof. I want to put on a concert."
Live Aid was about to be born.
http://www.expressandstar.com/artman/publish/article_55104.php
