Don Powell

Powell was born in Bilston, near Wolverhampton, in 1946. His parents were Walter and Dora Powell; Walter was a steelworker, and Dora made electrical components. He has three siblings, a brother and two sisters. He attended Villiers Road Primary School from 1950 to 1957 and started to play drums for the Boy Scouts in 1958. He then attended Etheridge Secondary Modern School for Boys from 1957 to 1962, and studied metallurgy at Wednesbury Technical College in 1962. ==Career==

He joined The Vendors in 1963, who in 1964 changed their name to The 'N Betweens; then to Ambrose Slade in 1969; and a few months later, on 24 October 1969, shortened that to Slade. As the drummer with Colonel Bagshot, McCusker toured with Slade in the 1970s and the two have remained firm friends. Powell collaborated with Lise Lyng Falkenberg on his biography since 2006, in part using the notebooks and diaries he kept due to his problems with short-term memory following his 1973 accident. The biography, titled Look Wot I Dun – My Life in Slade was released via the publisher Music Sales Ltd in October 2013. It covers in detail Slade's long career and Powell's life, which included booze-ups with Ozzy Osbourne. In 2013, Powell created his own website, and in early 2014 he published his diary entries for 1977 and 1978. In February 2020, Powell announced that he had been fired by email by Dave Hill and would be forming Don Powell's Slade to perform Slade songs. The reason for Powell being dismissed wasn't officially given at the time. Noddy Holder eventually confirmed the reason for Powell being fired was because he had missed a few gigs because of an injury; on 28 December 2018 when at Peterborough station, he snapped tendons in both of his legs and was hospitalised for five weeks, eventually returning to performing again on 1 November 2019. Powell had worried about his leg relapsing while on stage, and just two days after returning to the band following his injuries was advised by doctors that he would be crippled for life and be unable to walk if he did not stop drumming, but he refused and so Dave Hill reacted by firing him. According to Holder, many fans turned against Hill, and it affected him personally. Soon after departing from Slade, Powell's website mentioned that he was fit enough to play drums again. He formed "Don Powell's Slade". ==Car crash==

On 8 June 1973, Powell collapsed with heat exhaustion at the end of a show in Birmingham. He spent the night in hospital but was declared fit to play the following morning when discharged. At 1am on Wednesday, 4 July 1973, when Slade were popular in Europe and number one in the UK Singles Chart with "Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me", Don Powell was severely injured in a serious car crash at Compton Road West, Wolverhampton, in which his 20-year-old fiancée, Angela Morris was killed instantly. smashed several teeth, broke both of his ankles and five of his ribs. Surgeons had to drill into his skull to ease the internal pressure and he was unconscious for six days but he eventually pulled through, finding the best therapy to be work. Both Powell and Morris had been flung out of the car so it was impossible to tell who had been driving. Powell was unable to attend Morris's cremation six days later on 10 July. He left the hospital on 30 July; by mid-August, he was back recording with the group. When the Top 5 hit "My Friend Stan" was recorded, Powell was 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 he still has severe problems with his short-term memory, whilst his long-term memory has remained unaffected. ==References==