The Northern Soul Thread

[sustento]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZh7nRw6gl8

[sustento]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1M5eEJeT38

[sustento]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPoTGyWT0Cg

[Chittychangchang]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPgE991VDwM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPgE991VDwM

End of the night tune,got this on Wand label. Class.

CCC

[Chittychangchang]

The most expensive record in Northern soul history, only 3 original copies...

Edited June 27, 2013 by Tywais
Testing embedded youtube

[Chittychangchang]

I had the great fortune to meet the late great man...

Manchester - Roger Eagle 1985 Interview for "The Cat" magazine.

How did you come to be DJ-ing at the Twisted Wheel ?

I walked in there one afternoon when it was the “Left Wing Coffee Bar” with a pile of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley imports on Chess and Checker and this guy asked me if I knew anything about Rhythm and Blues. Naturally I said yes, so he asked me if I wanted to dj. I’d never DJ-ed before but I thought I’d take a shot at it and that’s how it started.

How did you cope DJ-ing for the first time ?

I didn’t really know what to do, I just put records on and I never used to say much. But the people who used to come down were really fanatical about sounds so if it was a good record they would know what it was within seconds, it was that kind of crowd.

Were you involved with the mod scene at that time ?

I suppose I was the dj the mod's would listen to if they were going to clubs because the Wheel was the allnighter scene in Manchester. I wasn’t a mod myself but I thought it was fascinating that English kids were getting into American black music.

We started bringing the artists over and it was amazing to see people such as Howlin’ Wolf, Otis Redding, Rufus Thomas, Muddy Waters etc… getting the same sort of reception that normally only big pop stars got.

The only thing I don’t like about the mod scene is that some people are very narrow in their tastes, we were very broadly based when we started at the Wheel. It gradually narrowed down to Northern Soul which I think was a mistake.

Did you have live bands at the Wheel ?

Yeah, we used to get American artists over to play, people such as Chuck Berry, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, T-Bone Walker, John Lee Hooker.Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf didn’t play but they did some live stuff for the local TV station. We had loads of them down there all the time, Jimmy Reed used to sell out the place.

When Sonny Boy Williamson came over he freaked over English girls wearing mini skirts. He was wandering around looking at all the girls saying ‘Heaven Hath Come Down’. He was probably the greatest harmonica player of them all, maybe even better than Little Walter, which is saying a lot.

How did you know Guy Stevens ?

We knew each other, we knew what we were doing, he used to send up records. He came up once with Inez and Charlie Foxx. He gave me a Don & Dewey single ‘Stretchin’ Out’ and he mailed me an album by Frank Frost & the Nighthawks which was out on Sam Phillips ‘Phillips International”. I used to go to the Scene club in Ham Yard before it was the Scene but I moved up to Manchester when the R&B thing started.

Where did you get your records at the time ?

Mostly I used to get them from American record companies or from a specialist import shop. I used to get records sent from the Stax label, Stan Axton the owner used to send me records. I used to get records sent from Tamla Motown, Atlantic, Dual, Duke, Sunset, Songbird, Backbeat and all those kind of labels.

Roughly, what would be the Twisted Wheel top ten in 1964 ?

The favourite record of all time at the Wheel was ‘It Keeps Raining’ – Fats Domino. That was probably the most played record, then you would go to something like ‘Walking The Dog’ – Rufus Thomas. Then you could go to any one of a dozen Muddy Waters records, probably something fairly obvious such as ‘Tiger In Your Tank’. The next on the list would be ‘That’s What I Want To Know’ – James Carr, then one of Bobby Blue Bland’s ‘Turn On Your Lovelight’. Then would come ‘Amen’ by the Reverend Robinson and ‘Long Distance’ by Garnell Cooper and the Kinfolks which was one of the rare unknown ones that we played a lot. You could pick on any one of a dozen records by Booker T & The MG’s, probably one of the more up-tempo ones such as ‘Can’t Be Still’ or something like that. There was always plenty of records from the Stax label in the top ten and also there was quite a lot of Tamla Motown floating around in there as well. But there was not quite so much Tamla Motown as people like to think. I didn’t play that much Motown or Spector stuff just because it was so widely available. I was playing gospel stuff, but after 4 years at the Wheel it was down to that one fast Northern Soul dance beat which became very boring and that’s why I left in mid ’67.

CCC

[Chittychangchang]

The first ever record to be played at the Twisted Wheel...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhlygCtJFSM

CCC

[sustento]

Roger Eagle obviously went to a different Twisted Wheel than I did...

[watutsi]

Hi guys,some nice insights into the past, as someone who has never been part of The Northern Soul scene, i would like to add my tuppance worth.

I have been passionate about the music since hearing the stuff being produced in the Brill Building in New York in the early 60's [ The Shirreles and The Drifters] and at Chess in Chicago [Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters] Then came Motown and Stax and soul music was born.It was part of the great music genres of the 60's but i would say by the end of the 60's early 70's it was pretty much over and had morphed into funk, and people like Curtis Mayfield Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye were making "concept albums"

Although i grew up in Scotland ,and being a one man "soul clan" had never been easy, by the end of the 60's i was living in London and very much part of the southern scene.It is round about now that the germination of what is called Northern Soul takes place.The majority of "young dancers" in the south following the sound of Funk and Philadelphia while in the north,[ for reasons that are still unclear to me,] a passion for all the more obscure records from the past takes over That is not a value judgement,i'm just curious, is it down to one collector or DJ ??

A small point i wanted to make was that much of the music now classed as "northern soul" is just soul music and was enjoyed by all who were lucky enough to grow up in the sixties wherever they went to clubs, north, south,Scotland, Wales, New York,Amsterdam.Classics by the like of Willie Mitchel , Dobie Grey, Bob and Earl were just soul classics, although some of them may have been revived by northern scene.

At what point did you guys who were going to The Twisted Wheel, Wigan Casino etc actually realise you were part of something called Norther Soul as opposed to just going to dance your hearts out to great music, as the term was not coined until the early 70's by some guy who owned a Blues and Soul shop in London, as he needed a category to file all the obscure record labels that people from up north kept asking for. From my own experience of great scenes, from my very extended youth, i've usually noticed that once they are labelled by the media or the like that much of what made the whole thing great has gone. I've no idea if this was the case with NS and at what point the people who started it faded away, but i hear so many fond memories from the people who experienced it that i'm very sorry i missed it .By the early 70's i would be laying stoned in Kabul or Goa listening to psychedelia .

As this thread is about the joy of music and not semantics here is a great bit of gospel/soul ;

[sustento]

I didn't realise it was 'Northern Soul' till years after I'd stopped going. To me and all my mates it was just the thing you did on a Saturday night. You went out, got off your face on speed and bopped the night away. I stopped going to clubs in about 1972, went to college and then spent 10 years at sea. It wasn't until I came ashore in 1985 that I learnt that I'd been a Northern Souler

It seems to me that some people made careers out of what we just took for granted.

[Chittychangchang]

Roger Eagle obviously went to a different Twisted Wheel than I did...

It's good to hear a different viewpoint from someone who was there.

It is commonly accepted on the scene that Roger Eagle was one of the pioneering promoters/dj's at the start however the move away from the gritty RnB that the Wheel first played was not to his taste.

That's when the Northern soulies sort of broke away, hence the Wigan Casino, Mecca etc

CCC

[Chittychangchang]

Hi guys,some nice insights into the past, as someone who has never been part of The Northern Soul scene, i would like to add my tuppance worth.

I have been passionate about the music since hearing the stuff being produced in the Brill Building in New York in the early 60's [ The Shirreles and The Drifters] and at Chess in Chicago [Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters] Then came Motown and Stax and soul music was born.It was part of the great music genres of the 60's but i would say by the end of the 60's early 70's it was pretty much over and had morphed into funk, and people like Curtis Mayfield Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye were making "concept albums"

Although i grew up in Scotland ,and being a one man "soul clan" had never been easy, by the end of the 60's i was living in London and very much part of the southern scene.It is round about now that the germination of what is called Northern Soul takes place.The majority of "young dancers" in the south following the sound of Funk and Philadelphia while in the north,[ for reasons that are still unclear to me,] a passion for all the more obscure records from the past takes over That is not a value judgement,i'm just curious, is it down to one collector or DJ ??

A small point i wanted to make was that much of the music now classed as "northern soul" is just soul music and was enjoyed by all who were lucky enough to grow up in the sixties wherever they went to clubs, north, south,Scotland, Wales, New York,Amsterdam.Classics by the like of Willie Mitchel , Dobie Grey, Bob and Earl were just soul classics, although some of them may have been revived by northern scene.

At what point did you guys who were going to The Twisted Wheel, Wigan Casino etc actually realise you were part of something called Norther Soul as opposed to just going to dance your hearts out to great music, as the term was not coined until the early 70's by some guy who owned a Blues and Soul shop in London, as he needed a category to file all the obscure record labels that people from up north kept asking for. From my own experience of great scenes, from my very extended youth, i've usually noticed that once they are labelled by the media or the like that much of what made the whole thing great has gone. I've no idea if this was the case with NS and at what point the people who started it faded away, but i hear so many fond memories from the people who experienced it that i'm very sorry i missed it .By the early 70's i would be laying stoned in Kabul or Goa listening to psychedelia .

As this thread is about the joy of music and not semantics here is a great bit of gospel/soul ;

Indeed the Americans still refer to Northern Soul as Doo wap, they have learnt though!

Through the hoards of U.K collectors searching and "rinsing" the vinyl basements shops of America.

The "battle" for the name funnily enough was between Northern Soul and Southern Soul, Due to the sheer popularity, enthusiasm, abundance of clubs/nights in the north of England.

The North preveiled.

I am going to to upload a recent video soon that gives the history of the Northern soul scene starting at the birth place "the Twisted Wheel", this video is not on you tube and is only being shown at small arty cinemas around the country.

Fortunately i have a copy.

For those who are interested you will find it fascinating and probaly relate to much of the content.

CCC

[Chittychangchang]

Northern Soul stomper- Melba Moore- The Magic touch

Hear how this beat and tune varies from the next early Twisted Wheel gritty RnB number....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCNPFo-C7S4

KTF

CCC

[Chittychangchang]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI7CtxlisCk

[xen]

Hi guys,some nice insights into the past, as someone who has never been part of The Northern Soul scene, i would like to add my tuppance worth.

I have been passionate about the music since hearing the stuff being produced in the Brill Building in New York in the early 60's [ The Shirreles and The Drifters] and at Chess in Chicago [Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters] Then came Motown and Stax and soul music was born.It was part of the great music genres of the 60's but i would say by the end of the 60's early 70's it was pretty much over and had morphed into funk, and people like Curtis Mayfield Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye were making "concept albums"

Although i grew up in Scotland ,and being a one man "soul clan" had never been easy, by the end of the 60's i was living in London and very much part of the southern scene.It is round about now that the germination of what is called Northern Soul takes place.The majority of "young dancers" in the south following the sound of Funk and Philadelphia while in the north,[ for reasons that are still unclear to me,] a passion for all the more obscure records from the past takes over That is not a value judgement,i'm just curious, is it down to one collector or DJ ??

A small point i wanted to make was that much of the music now classed as "northern soul" is just soul music and was enjoyed by all who were lucky enough to grow up in the sixties wherever they went to clubs, north, south,Scotland, Wales, New York,Amsterdam.Classics by the like of Willie Mitchel , Dobie Grey, Bob and Earl were just soul classics, although some of them may have been revived by northern scene.

At what point did you guys who were going to The Twisted Wheel, Wigan Casino etc actually realise you were part of something called Norther Soul as opposed to just going to dance your hearts out to great music, as the term was not coined until the early 70's by some guy who owned a Blues and Soul shop in London, as he needed a category to file all the obscure record labels that people from up north kept asking for. From my own experience of great scenes, from my very extended youth, i've usually noticed that once they are labelled by the media or the like that much of what made the whole thing great has gone. I've no idea if this was the case with NS and at what point the people who started it faded away, but i hear so many fond memories from the people who experienced it that i'm very sorry i missed it .By the early 70's i would be laying stoned in Kabul or Goa listening to psychedelia .

As this thread is about the joy of music and not semantics here is a great bit of gospel/soul ;

Indeed the Americans still refer to Northern Soul as Doo wap, they have learnt though!

Through the hoards of U.K collectors searching and "rinsing" the vinyl basements shops of America.

The "battle" for the name funnily enough was between Northern Soul and Southern Soul, Due to the sheer popularity, enthusiasm, abundance of clubs/nights in the north of England.

The North preveiled.

I am going to to upload a recent video soon that gives the history of the Northern soul scene starting at the birth place "the Twisted Wheel", this video is not on you tube and is only being shown at small arty cinemas around the country.

Fortunately i have a copy.

For those who are interested you will find it fascinating and probaly relate to much of the content.

CCC

Please excuse my ignorance and for not being a Brit and and being an outsider , but for many years i always thought term Northern Soul was based on music that had its origins in the Detroit and Philly sounds whereas Southern Soul was the Soul music that came from Alabama and Georgia and even Texas . Northern soul always , in general terms seemed to lighter , boppier and perhaps even more melodic whereas Southern soul or deep soul as it sometimes called had more of a cross-over with American C & W and the blues. Soul artists like Joe Simon put out many "country" albums and Ray Charles 's "Modern Sounds in Country & Western' opened up a whole new audience to black music. It is always difficult to put any music styles into neat little boxes . Over the past few years i have learnt that Northern Soul has a completely different source.

it does not matter tho - good soul music is to be enjoyed by everybody who had that taste .

[sustento]

We'are actually talking about Northern Soul in the UK rather than the origins of the music that was played. In the 60s and early 70s there were a number of clubs in the English north and midlands where soul and Tamla became enormously popular. They were where the mods hung out.

[rosst]

Yeah, I am in the China boat too, no UTube or facebook and they interfere with Google too when they feel like it.

[sustento]

Roger Eagle obviously went to a different Twisted Wheel than I did...

It's good to hear a different viewpoint from someone who was there.

I was just a punter who paid his money and danced the night away wherever it was. If I had to choose one club from all the places I went to it would have been the Mojo in Sheffield. When Stevie Wonder toured the UK in 1967 it was the only club that he was willing to play at. All his other dates were theatres and sites where he was remote from the audience. At the Mojo the "star's" dressing rooms were next to the gent's loo

[watutsi]

We'are actually talking about Northern Soul in the UK rather than the origins of the music that was played. In the 60s and early 70s there were a number of clubs in the English north and midlands where soul and Tamla became enormously popular. They were where the mods hung out.

Sorry if i'm being too pedantic about this, but dancing to soul and tamla and being a mod is not my understanding of the "Northern Soul" scene.People were doing that everywhere throughout Britain.What set the northern scene apart was the obsession with relatively unknown or obscure records that probably had never been released in the UK, that were from small record labels and had very limited exposure and few pressings.That coupled with a very particular rhythm and beat created the athletic type of dancing that was unique to this scene and made it different to what was going on elsewhere.Hence it getting a title all to itself.

[sustento]

Here are some playlists from the Twisted Wheel in the 60s. Note that the Twisted Wheel opened in Brazenose Street in 63 and moved to Whitworth Street in 65 where it ran until 1971. The Whitworth Street playlists contained quite a bit of Tamla which is what actually happened. Most people would consider the Wheel to be one of the premier Northern Soul venues. It seems to me that latterly Northern Soul has been turned into something that it wasn't back in the 60s but what do I know?

http://home.btconnect.com/twistedwheel/Playlist/whitworth_st_1.html

[watutsi]

You are right Sustento in that the emerging NS scene you experienced at clubs like the Twisted Wheel etc in the late 60's must have evolved by the time it hit the ballrooms in the 70's.I can not imagine that spinning , jumping then splits type dancing being very comfortable in the generally cramped for space clubs we danced to soul in the 60's.

I really hope CCC is able to download the documentary on The Wheel as there is so very little visual stuff before the ballroom scene in the mid 70'S.

[sustento]

I've seen a few videos of Wigan Casino which was later than the Wheel and it looks very much bigger which would have given more room to dance in. Both the Wheel and the Dungeon had their dance floors in the basement which made them quite confined. I had a friend called Monty who was 6'4" and he had to bend his head in the Dungeon so as not to touch the ceiling

[sustento]

You are right Sustento in that the emerging NS scene you experienced at clubs like the Twisted Wheel etc in the late 60's must have evolved by the time it hit the ballrooms in the 70's.I can not imagine that spinning , jumping then splits type dancing being very comfortable in the generally cramped for space clubs we danced to soul in the 60's.

I really hope CCC is able to download the documentary on The Wheel as there is so very little visual stuff before the ballroom scene in the mid 70'S.

Dancing like that simply wasn't possible in most of the places I went to.

[Chittychangchang]

The makers of the docufilm have released a trailer recently on you tube...

Due to copyright it would unfair for me to upload the DVD until the film has been shown at all the planned cinemas and released for sale.

CCC

[sustento]

The makers of the docufilm have released a trailer recently on you tube...

Due to copyright it would unfair for me to upload the DVD until the film has been shown at all the planned cinemas and released for sale.

CCC

Any idea where it's showing or when the DVD will be available? I'll buy one!

[Chittychangchang]

The makers of the docufilm have released a trailer recently on you tube...

Due to copyright it would unfair for me to upload the DVD until the film has been shown at all the planned cinemas and released for sale.

CCC

Any idea where it's showing or when the DVD will be available? I'll buy one!

All info is on the FB site https://www.facebook.com/groups/110953501257/?hc_location=stream

CCC

[sustento]

Sorry

[sustento]

There used to be a hole in the wall club we used to go to on a Sunday morning after the Wheel. Can't remember the name but I think it was in Oldham. You used to have to travel past the Daily Express print works to get there. There was often a Lamborghini Miura parked outside.

[Chittychangchang]

Wheel classic

CCC

[watutsi]

The earth moved for me the first time i heard this ;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHSURA2RCAQ