Northern soul is a type of mid-tempo and uptempo heavy-beat soul music (of mainly African American origin) that was popularized in Northern England from the mid 1960s onwards. The term also refers to the associated dance styles and fashions that emanated from the Twisted Wheel club in Manchester and spread to other dancehalls and nightclubs, such as the Golden Torch (in Stoke-upon-Trent), the Highland Rooms at the Blackpool Mecca and the Wigan Casino. Northern soul dancing was usually athletic, resembling the later dance styles of disco and break dancing. Featuring spins, flips, and backdrops, the northern soul dancing style was inspired by the stage performances of visiting American soul acts such as Little Anthony & The Imperials and Jackie Wilson.

The music that has become known as northern soul mainly consists of American soul recordings of a particular style and tempo that were recorded from the mid-1960s onwards. These recordings were based on the Tamla Motown sound and released only in limited numbers within the United States. Whilst this includes lesser known songs and artists from the Motown and Stax labels, releases from more obscure labels such as Okeh Records, Ric Tic, Cameo-Parkway and Roulette were prized more highly. Viewed retrospectively, the earliest recording that can be considered to be the 'true' northern soul sound is "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)"by The Four Tops (1965, Tamla Motown).

The original northern soul scene lasted from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, and is considered a retrogressive or revivalist movement based on a style of music created years earlier. At the height of its popularity in the 1970s, African American artists had moved on to newer genres such as funk, jazz funk and disco, so the northern soul scene relied on a finite supply of 1960s recordings.

The phrase northern soul was coined by journalist Dave Godin and first publicly used in his weekly column in Blues and Soul magazine in June 1970. In a 2002 interview with Chris Hunt of Mojo magazine, Godin explained that he had first come up with the term in 1968, to help employees at his record shop, Soul City, in Covent Garden, London to differentiate the more modern funkier sounds from the smoother, Motown-influenced soul of a few years earlier:

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'.

A large proportion of northern soul's original audience came from within the mod movement. In the late 1960s, some mods started to embrace freakbeat and psychedelic rock, but other mods - especially those in northern England - stuck to the original mod soundtrack of soul and blue beat. From the latter category, two strands emerged. Some mods transformed into what eventually became the skinheads, and others formed the basis of the northern soul scene. Early northern soul fashion included strong elements of the classic mod style such as button-down Ben Sherman shirts, blazers with centre vents and unusual numbers of buttons, Trickers and brogue shoes and shrink-to-fit Levi's jeans. Some non-mod items such as bowling shirts were also popular. Later on, northern soul dancers started to wear light and loose-fitting clothing for reasons of practicality. This included high-waisted, baggy Oxford trousers and sports vests. These were often covered with badges representing soul club memberships.

The first nightclub that effectively defined the northern soul sound was Manchester's Twisted Wheel Club and its resident DJ Roger Eagle. The club opened in 1963 and finally closed in 1971. Other early clubs were The Mojo in Sheffield, The Catacombs in Wolverhampton, Golden Torch in Stoke, Room at the Top in Wigan, the Wigan Casino (1973 to 1981), the Blackpool Mecca and Va Va's in Bolton. The music reached its peak of popularity in the mid to late 1970s. In 1978, Wigan Casino was voted the world's number one discotheque by the American magazine Billboard. This was during the heyday of the world famous Studio 54 nightclub in New York City, and only a year before the cities' equally renowned Paradise Garage was awarded the same accolade. Thousands of people visited every week, but as the supply of freshly discovered rare recordings dwindled, the exclusive and underground appeal of the music began to fade. Consequently, many of the fans drifted away.

When Wigan Casino closed in 1981, many believed the northern soul scene was on the verge of disintegrating. However, the 1970s mod revival, the thriving scooterboy subculture and the later Acid Jazz movement produced a new wave of fans. The popularity of the music was further bolstered in the 1980s by a wave of reissues and compilation albums from small British independent record labels such as Kent Records, Goldmine and Soul Supply. Many of these labels were set up by DJs and collectors who had been part of the original scene.

The 1980s — often dismissed as a low period for the northern soul scene by those who had left in the 1970s — featured almost 100 new venues in places as diverse as Bradford, London, Peterborough, Leighton Buzzard, Whitchurch, Coventry and Leicester. Pre-eminent among the 1980s venues were Stafford's Top of the World and London's 100 Club. Previously, most of the songs played at northern soul clubs had been fast stompers by American black artists, but 1980s northern soul DJs began to add mid-tempo tunes, slower ballads and songs by non-African-American acts such as Gale Garnett.

Northern Soul JukeBox

Selection of Soul Music