It's 60s soul from the US, not unlike Motown in some ways. It's mostly rare stuff. It has a following in the UK, and back in the 70s and 80s it was popular up north.
The story is that a guy called Dave Godin had a record shop in London I think, and he noticed that all the people from the north of England had different tastes in soul music to the people from Southern England, so he sorted out the records that the northern people liked and stuck them in a box labelled "northern soul". I have no idea if that story is true by the way.
There is still a northern soul following. There are the "all-nighters" where they play purely northern soul. The dancing is amazing - a lot of back flips and that sort of thing.
I used to attend the all nighters at Wigan Casino circa 1973/74. Great fun and great music/dancing.
Still love the music....can't do the dancing quite as well though!
I hadn't heard of Northern Soul until I watched SoulBoy (2010) (I enjoyed Northern Soul (2014) more).
I do vaguely remember seeing and hearing casual mentions of Northern Soul in random music magazines while I was growing up, but I wasn't aware it was a movement until that film.
I remember frequenting Wigan Casino and The Torch (in Stoke) on many an occasion.
Northern soul does seem to have made quite a comeback, especially with the Mods and their scooters, but I'm afraid i think i must have grown out of a lot of it. It all seems to have exactly the same beat, same tone but just different words to me now. Maybe i'm just OLD
Me too. One of the original DJs is my cousin. The size of his record collection back then was humungous!:D
My Husband likes Northern Soul as do some of my friends. I don't really like it myself. I once went to a Northern Soul night with my friends and i was bored listening to it all night. I did enjoy watching Soulboy though, and a documentary on Bbc 4, that was interesting.
I have been to a few Northern Soul nights in places like the 100 Club in Oxford Street, though sadly the atmosphere can sometimes be very 'purist and not too friendly which is a shame
I hope to go one up north at some point where I can imagine which would be much friendlier
I recall about 7 years ago going to one around the Euston area and Peaches Geldof was there, apparently she was big fan too
Comments
I used to attend the all nighters at Wigan Casino circa 1973/74. Great fun and great music/dancing.
Still love the music....can't do the dancing quite as well though!
I do vaguely remember seeing and hearing casual mentions of Northern Soul in random music magazines while I was growing up, but I wasn't aware it was a movement until that film.
Me too.
I have been to a few Northern Soul nights in places like the 100 Club in Oxford Street, though sadly the atmosphere can sometimes be very 'purist and not too friendly which is a shame
I hope to go one up north at some point where I can imagine which would be much friendlier
I recall about 7 years ago going to one around the Euston area and Peaches Geldof was there, apparently she was big fan too
Spent many a night dancing away at Wigan Casino all nighters. Fantastic, the best times ever.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/0/24164508
It still makes my skin tingle when | hear it.
One of my favourites:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsSoDsxB7Yo
I could go on about it forever.