It all started when a man called Ian Levine went on vacation with his wealthy family to Florida. Never such innocence indeed! And appropriately, it was at one of these places where a veritable Great War erupted in Northern Soul. The large halls where grandparents had danced in Larkin’s 1914 became venues for large-scale soul events. The mid seventies were not kind to the old English seaside resorts but the Northern Soul scene offered some relief. Wigan Casino closed in the late 70s, by which time the scene was shifting to the Mecca in Blackpool. One Wigan dancer later described it as ‘our Vietnam flashback moment’. For a scene deeply invested in authenticity and integrity, it was traumatic. In 1975, an episode of Top of the Pops featured a cringe inducing ‘Northern Soul’ dance segment with lousy music and ridiculous clothing. Wigan’s popularity inevitably caught the notice of the mainstream media, albeit briefly. The dancers would then make their way outside, blinking in the grey Sunday morning light and presumably heading for the nearest curry shop. I dare you! At the end of the night which was actually the next morning, the DJ would play the ‘3 before 8’(am) Jimmy Radcliffe’s Long After Tonight Is All Over, Tobi Legend’s Time Will Pass You By and Dean Parrish’s I’m On My Way. Listen to it on YouTube and see if you can sit still. The main room, however, was where the seriously aerodynamic dancing took place and legendary DJs melted the floor with sides like Fred Hughes Baby Boy. In other rooms there were pop up rare record markets where big money changed hands and discussions of music often grew heated. There were smaller rooms where traditionalists could dance to early sixties sides without having to worry about the creeping funkiness of early 70s r’n’b. He lovingly recreates the sights, sounds and olfactory sense of an evening there. Stuart Cosgrove covers the early years at Manchester’s Twisted Wheel nightclub, where the scene was born, but focuses on the most famous venue of all, Wigan Casino. As for female dancers, well, there was one young woman who turned a few heads with her moves at the Blackpool Mecca in the mid 70s.
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Many of the most famous male dancers were also involved in martial arts. The clothes had to be loose enough to accommodate back flips, high kicks, and swallow dives. Unlike the twisty yoga hand jive and starry eyed shuffle of the first group, Northern Soul dancing was acrobatically athletic. The other group donned singlets and loose pants for heart murmuring nights of amphetamine cocktails and Northern Soul. One group drifted into paisley shirts and faux pastoral lysergic afternoons in Hyde Park.
#Wigan young souls mods
This eclecticism soon gave way to an almost religious obsession with Motown and the thousands of little labels producing similar sounds in that period.Īt some point in the late Sixties, the Mods divided into two factions. The original Mods listened to Jazz, Blues, RnB, and the early Jamaican pop sounds on Blue Beat records. These DJs were playing music for Mods who, as Pete Townsend has always made clear, did not listen to The Who. It was used to describe the incredibly obscure soul 45s that were so popular with DJs in Manchester and points north. In any case, Northern Soul is a term originally used by London record stores in the mid 1960s. There are great Northern Soul favourites from the American south but overall the aesthetic seems to be more Motown than Stax, more city than swamp. Yes, it refers to the north of England but it also might allude to the provenance of many of the rare American soul records played in the dancehalls. So what is ‘Northern Soul’? This is tricky. Young Soul Rebels is more personal but his ability to meld economic change, music, and personal journeys is still on show. That book was an ambitious historical sweep of late 60s America. His Penderyn nominated Detroit 67 (reviewed on this blog) appeared late last year.
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This is his second book about music in the last twelve months.
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Cosgrove, who now hosts a football program on the BBC, peppers this detailed history with his own memories. The scene was so insular that I suspect that it would be virtually impossible to write about it without a personal connection. He came of age dancing in Wigan Casino circa 1975 and is thus perfectly placed to tell Northern Soul’s story. Stuart Cosgrove is part of the inner circle.
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The dancers have changed but the beat goes on. Not easy, is it? In the late sixties, young English people were dancing to obscure soul 45s in decaying industrial towns. Try to think of another music scene that has continued virtually unchanged for roughly half a century. Northern Soul is timeless and somewhat mysterious. Young Soul Rebels: A Personal History of Northern Soul by Stuart Cosgrove, Polygot 2016