The clubs of Northern Soul

Northern Soul was the birth of the crate-digger, the start of modern clubbing as well know it and a fully-formed drug subculture some 20 years before ecstasy arrived in the UK. Some time in the mid-60s there was sharp divergence between soul lovers in the North and South. The original London mods dissolved into the new dream of LSD and Jefferson Airplane, swapping Italian suits for kaftans, while in the North they kept the faith driven by a hunger for unearthing new and old soul sounds from labels in the African-American underground like Ric-Tic and Golden World (Detroit), Mirwood (Los Angeles) and Shout and Okeh (New York and Chicago).

The term ‘Northern Soul’ was coined by soul writer Dave Godin in a piece he wrote for Blues & Soul Magazine in 1970 as a way of describing the divergence in styles between the north and south. Northerners would come into Godin’s London store, Soul City, and ask for completely different tunes to his regular southern customers. “What I noticed was that people who came from the north were not buying what was subsequently called funk,” said Godin. The sound was uptempo and mainly based on the stomping beat personified by the Four Tops’ ‘Can’t Help Myself’ and other Motown productions. This sound was largely fuelled by increasing amphetamine use at all-nighters, where Northern Soul was forged and thrived.

The birthplace of Northern Soul, Manchester’s Twisted Wheel was the premier spot to dance all night to black soul music (along with others, like Peter Stringfellow’s Mojo club in Sheffield), it soon developed a reputation not only for its musical influence, but also in establishing Northern Soul’s drug culture; with events often lasting until 10am on Sunday mornings, amphetamines were commonplace among clubbers wanting to last the distance.

The altered state of the club’s clientele also had a significant impact on dictating its sound, requiring a much faster beat. As black America moved into the 1970s led by James Brown and his funk disciples, the bpm dropped to a leisurely groove and so Northern DJs began searching for songs that had the required tempo – and feel – to feed their speedy dancefloors. With everyone desperate to play exclusive, previously unheard gems, trips to the US digging for obscurities became commonplace, with leading DJs covering up the labels or purposely inventing new names to conceal the song’s identity, giving them exclusivity and offering something unavailable at rival nights.

“It was a completely new form of music,” says DJ Ian Levine. “It combined a rock beat to dance to, jazz chords which elevated your mood to make you
feel happy or wistful, and great sing-along choruses. That was the sound of Northern Soul.” By 1971 the Twisted Wheel’s reputation as a drug den became its undoing and it was closed down by the police for allegedly turning a blind eye to the drug dealing and drug-taking that was rife on the premises. “The drug squad saw it as a haven for people taking drugs,” recalls DJ Richard Searling. “Though it was true that it did go on, it wasn’t the reason people went there.”

Having been forced out of Manchester due to the city’s laws on after-hours partying, Northern Soul’s new home became the unlikely location of Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, home of Chris Burton’s Golden Torch.

The Torch had been a successful r’n’b club since 1965, but stepped up following the demise of the Wheel and began hosting soul all-nighters in 1972. Kev Roberts, later a resident at the Wigan Casino, had an epiphany at the Torch: “I thought it was terrific, because that was the first place that had an abundance of American 45s. I’d never come across so many unknown records in my life. And every one of them was a stonker. They were all fast, furious great vocals. Girl groups. Odd imprints. Obscurities on the Okeh label. I’d only ever seen that label with Major Lance, and suddenly I was hearing things like Sandy Sheldon’s ‘You’re Gonna Make Me Love You’. It was great.”

Faced with complicated, fractured train or bus journeys or hitchhiking to get there, clubbers stayed faithful to The Torch until their logistical nightmares came to an end in 1973 with the emergence of the Wigan Casino, a venue which would change the face of the scene and become its de facto home.

“The decision to open in Wigan was perfect,” says Richard Searling, who DJed there between 1973 and 1981. “It was on the motorway, it had a train station, and it was very easy to access. The scene never looked back from that point on. It just got bigger and bigger.”

Wigan Casino opened its doors for the first time at 2am on September 23 1973. The brain-child of local DJ Russ Winstanley, the club was an alternative to previous all-nighters, which had been held in dark, dingy venues. “I had been looking for a space to hold the all-nighters in Wigan after The Torch closed, and I thought the Casino Club was a perfect space,” Russ recalls. “It was vast, with a fabulous sprung dancefloor, balconies, and space for 3,000–4,000 people. It was ideal for what we wanted to do.”

Within months, Wigan Casino had established itself as the country’s leading venue for Northern Soul’s faithful to make the pilgrimage there every Saturday. Hordes of like-minded clubbers with their 35” baggies, vests and bowling bags (which contained a change of clothes, records and talc, an essential component for dancing) descended on the town for the famed club night, forcing the doors to open two hours earlier, at midnight.

With the early opening meaning the all-nighters were now eight hours or more, and with the Casino not having a license to serve alcohol, it was only natural that drugs, particularly speed, would fuel the club nights in a major way – though Russ Winstanley says he feels that their association has been over-exaggerated in recent films.

“It’s just such a bad representation of how it really was,” he says. “It’s a shame, because they could be championing the scene instead of making it look like all it consisted of was some ill, abusive, horrible people who just lived for drugs and a bit of music. I never saw one prosecution for drugs for any one person at Wigan Casino, and that’s out of four million people. We spent the first year fighting to get the place cleaned up otherwise we wouldn’t have had it. Both the Torch and the Twisted Wheel were closed down because of drugs, so we fought like mad to keep the Casino open and at first it wasn’t too good. We took the step of inviting the police into the Casino who then identified the culprits to us and so we got rid of the bloody idiots.”

Despite being a movement which prided itself on dancing to its own beat, Northern Soul began to have an impact on mainstream culture. In 1977, This England, a TV documentary about Wigan Casino, was watched by over 20 million people, while records that had become turntable hits were re-pressed and reissued and went on to chart. Canny labels spotted a gap in the market and began specifically recording songs with a Northern Soul beat, but which lacked the authenticity of the original records. “Some of those later records were really detrimental to the scene,” Richard Searling recalls. “They damaged the genre and the Casino did lose respect, to an extent. Records were played by certain regular DJs who, by that time, had not been able to keep up with finding the American rarities, so they resorted to pop instead. Fortunately at the time I was finding lots of great unknown soul 45s which evened things up, so luckily we didn’t lose the crowds.”

Despite maintaining its vast numbers, Wigan Casino was forced to close in 1981 in order to make way for the council’s redevelopment plans. “It was the only night I never wanted to go to at the Casino,” Russ says. “It was horrible. People were crying because friendships had formed, and we all felt like we were never going to see each other again. I played the last three records and drove out into the countryside and cried my eyes out.”

The only real rival to Wigan Casino was the Highland Rooms in Blackpool’s Mecca, where Ian Levine and Colin Curtis were the residents. The club was integral in defining the fashion, the athletic dance style which incorporated tricks and flips and the sound of Northern Soul (and later, disco), which was dictated by Levine’s ear and his frequent trips to the US to bring back the sounds resonating in the clubs of New York.

During a record-digging trip to Miami in 1974 he discovered over 4,000 records, which, he says, lasted a couple of years. “It was the greatest haul ever,” he says. “I broke so many classic Northern Soul records from that haul. Some were B-sides of obscure records from Detroit and we made them hits in defiance of Radio 1, in defiance of the media, in defiance of the record companies and in defiance of Top Of The Pops.”

Unlike the Casino and the Golden Torch, Mecca was unable to host all-nighters due to its license which only allowed it to open until 2am, something that limited its popularity – if not its impact. Four decades later, the sound and style of Northern Soul continues to infiltrate popular culture. Elaine Constantine’s Northern Soul film has just opened in the US, artists such as Pharrell Williams credit its influence and the ‘Move On Up’ compilation was one of last year’s most successful. The secret to its enduring popularity? “It’s timeless, great music,” says Richard Searling. “It’s uplifting, the melodies are memorable, and like Motown, we will always love Northern Soul.”

‘Casino Classics: Complete Collection’ is out now on Cherry Red. Details of Richard Searlings’ BBC radio shows can be found here