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Northern soul
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Northern soul
Northern soul is a music and dance movement that emerged in Northern England and the Midlands in the early 1970s. It developed from the British mod scene, based on a particular style of Black American soul music with a heavy beat and fast tempo (100 bpm and above).
The Northern soul movement generally eschews Motown or Motown-influenced music that has had significant mainstream commercial success. The recordings most prized by enthusiasts are by lesser-known artists, "rare grooves" released in limited numbers on labels such as VeeJay, Chess, Brunswick, Ric-Tic, Gordy Records, Golden World Records (Detroit), Mirwood Records (Los Angeles), Shout Records and Okeh.
Northern soul is associated with dance styles and fashions that grew out of the underground rhythm and soul scene of the late 1960s at venues such as the Twisted Wheel in Manchester. This scene and the associated dances and fashions quickly spread to other dancehalls and nightclubs like the Wigan Casino, Blackpool Mecca (the Highland Room), and Golden Torch (Stoke-on-Trent).
As the favoured beat became more uptempo and frantic in the early 1970s, Northern soul dancing became more athletic, resembling the later dance styles of disco and break dancing. Featuring spins, flips, karate kicks and backdrops, club dancing styles were often inspired by the stage performances of touring American soul acts such as Little Anthony and the Imperials and Jackie Wilson.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, popular Northern soul records generally dated from the mid-1960s. This meant that the movement was sustained (and new recordings added to playlists) by prominent DJs discovering rare and previously overlooked records. Later on, certain clubs and DJs began to move away from the 1960s sound and began to play newer releases with a more contemporary sound.
The term "Northern soul" emanated from the record shop Soul City in Covent Garden, London, which was run by the soul music collector Dave Godin. It was first publicly used in Godin's weekly column in Blues & Soul magazine in June 1970. In a 2002 interview with Chris Hunt of Mojo magazine, Godin said he had first come up with the term in 1968, to help employees at Soul City differentiate the more modern funkier sounds from the smoother. Godin referred to the latter's requests as "Northern soul":
I had started to notice that northern football fans who were in London to follow their team were coming into the store to buy records, but they weren't interested in the latest developments in the black American chart. I devised the name as a shorthand sales term. It was just to say "if you've got customers from the north, don't waste time playing them records currently in the U.S. black chart, just play them what they like – 'Northern Soul'".
The music style most associated with Northern soul is the heavy syncopated beat and fast tempo of the mid-1960s Motown Records, usually combined with soulful vocals. These types of records, which suited the athletic dancing that was prevalent, became known on the scene as "stompers". Notable examples include Tony Clarke's "Landslide" (popularised by Ian Levine at Blackpool Mecca) and Gloria Jones’ "Tainted Love" (purchased by Richard Searling on a trip to the United States in 1973 and popularised at Va Va’s in Bolton, and later, Wigan Casino). According to Northern soul DJ Ady Croadsell, viewed retrospectively, the earliest recording to possess this style was the 1965 single "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" by the Four Tops, although that record was never popular in the Northern soul scene because it was too mainstream. The venue most commonly associated with the early development of the Northern soul scene was the Twisted Wheel in Manchester. The club began in the early 1950s as a beatnik coffee bar called The Left Wing, but in early 1963, the run-down premises were leased by two Manchester businessmen (Ivor and Phil Abadi) and turned into a music venue.[page needed] Initially, the Twisted Wheel mainly hosted live music on the weekends and Disc Only nights during the week. DJ Roger Eagle, a collector of imported American soul, jazz and rhythm and blues, was booked around this time, and the club's reputation as a place to hear and dance to the latest American R&B music began to grow. Pubs such as the Eagle in Birmingham were frequented by young blue-eyed soul singers such as Steve Winwood, who released songs similar to the early U.S. soul music.
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Northern soul
Northern soul is a music and dance movement that emerged in Northern England and the Midlands in the early 1970s. It developed from the British mod scene, based on a particular style of Black American soul music with a heavy beat and fast tempo (100 bpm and above).
The Northern soul movement generally eschews Motown or Motown-influenced music that has had significant mainstream commercial success. The recordings most prized by enthusiasts are by lesser-known artists, "rare grooves" released in limited numbers on labels such as VeeJay, Chess, Brunswick, Ric-Tic, Gordy Records, Golden World Records (Detroit), Mirwood Records (Los Angeles), Shout Records and Okeh.
Northern soul is associated with dance styles and fashions that grew out of the underground rhythm and soul scene of the late 1960s at venues such as the Twisted Wheel in Manchester. This scene and the associated dances and fashions quickly spread to other dancehalls and nightclubs like the Wigan Casino, Blackpool Mecca (the Highland Room), and Golden Torch (Stoke-on-Trent).
As the favoured beat became more uptempo and frantic in the early 1970s, Northern soul dancing became more athletic, resembling the later dance styles of disco and break dancing. Featuring spins, flips, karate kicks and backdrops, club dancing styles were often inspired by the stage performances of touring American soul acts such as Little Anthony and the Imperials and Jackie Wilson.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, popular Northern soul records generally dated from the mid-1960s. This meant that the movement was sustained (and new recordings added to playlists) by prominent DJs discovering rare and previously overlooked records. Later on, certain clubs and DJs began to move away from the 1960s sound and began to play newer releases with a more contemporary sound.
The term "Northern soul" emanated from the record shop Soul City in Covent Garden, London, which was run by the soul music collector Dave Godin. It was first publicly used in Godin's weekly column in Blues & Soul magazine in June 1970. In a 2002 interview with Chris Hunt of Mojo magazine, Godin said he had first come up with the term in 1968, to help employees at Soul City differentiate the more modern funkier sounds from the smoother. Godin referred to the latter's requests as "Northern soul":
I had started to notice that northern football fans who were in London to follow their team were coming into the store to buy records, but they weren't interested in the latest developments in the black American chart. I devised the name as a shorthand sales term. It was just to say "if you've got customers from the north, don't waste time playing them records currently in the U.S. black chart, just play them what they like – 'Northern Soul'".
The music style most associated with Northern soul is the heavy syncopated beat and fast tempo of the mid-1960s Motown Records, usually combined with soulful vocals. These types of records, which suited the athletic dancing that was prevalent, became known on the scene as "stompers". Notable examples include Tony Clarke's "Landslide" (popularised by Ian Levine at Blackpool Mecca) and Gloria Jones’ "Tainted Love" (purchased by Richard Searling on a trip to the United States in 1973 and popularised at Va Va’s in Bolton, and later, Wigan Casino). According to Northern soul DJ Ady Croadsell, viewed retrospectively, the earliest recording to possess this style was the 1965 single "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" by the Four Tops, although that record was never popular in the Northern soul scene because it was too mainstream. The venue most commonly associated with the early development of the Northern soul scene was the Twisted Wheel in Manchester. The club began in the early 1950s as a beatnik coffee bar called The Left Wing, but in early 1963, the run-down premises were leased by two Manchester businessmen (Ivor and Phil Abadi) and turned into a music venue.[page needed] Initially, the Twisted Wheel mainly hosted live music on the weekends and Disc Only nights during the week. DJ Roger Eagle, a collector of imported American soul, jazz and rhythm and blues, was booked around this time, and the club's reputation as a place to hear and dance to the latest American R&B music began to grow. Pubs such as the Eagle in Birmingham were frequented by young blue-eyed soul singers such as Steve Winwood, who released songs similar to the early U.S. soul music.
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