The Strange World of Northern Soul
Every true Soul appreciator ought to at least see this DVD a work of monumental proportions. An incredible achievement by Iain Levine, but some of the facts surrounding the early years are somewhat biased,… and those backing drums aaagghhhHHH. Lets look at a few facts. The people we know went to the Twisted Wheel in the 1960’s and this website is from their collected memories. It was the undisputed birth place of Northern and original ‘classic soul music appreciation and the location was in Manchester in the 1960’s. The period in which it all began was 1964 – 1967 and possibly into 68’. This was when the main bulk of Soul recordings were made, the vast bulk of American Soul music was played at the Twisted Wheel, mainly by Roger Eagle and later by Paul Davis and Bobby ‘Dee’ Derbyshire, all of whom were responsible for discovering song after song, with Roger importing multiple USA records. Wheelgoers also imported lots of USA singles usually obtained from deleted lists via postal auctions. It was sad to see an obviously ill Roger Eagle in the film, but he was rightfully claiming to have originated the later Northern Soul scene, which is undoubtedly traced back to him. Then later in the DVD programme Phil Saxe (Wheel DJ 69’) saying Roger didn’t! There appears to be a lot of fairy dust associated with discovering rare tracks and the value of rarity eclipses the song’s own value in some cases. The discovery and popularising of 45’s has its own cashay with Northern Soul D.J’s. I think that Phil was really referring to the music played in the end period of the Club 69-71. A lot of it is about ego building its as though the locating and playing of a record by an individual becomes as important as the skill and the delivery of the artist and the musicians involved. In objective terms one does eclipse the other: its called talent, the other is called ego; it never existed before ‘I’ found it syndrome. There is obvious value in this but lets get it straight when it comes down to it the music is more, much more than the DJ. Lets get some more facts straight, without Roger the Northern Soul scene would never have got started with such an impetus, and it would not have been in Manchester (probably London). Obviously some people that make claims in the programme did not go to the ‘Wheel’ at the formative period, they know nothing of the records played, and many believe that recordings they heard later were discovered by their contemporaries, but this was years after the originating crowd had danced all night to many of them on multiple occasions. Some people are commenting and making assumptions without the facts. When Roger left the Wheel he took his record collection to the Blue Note Club, a few streets from the Wheel, he was able to expand his playlist to include a much wider range of black American music. He increased his import activities and the club benefited by attracting lots of Wheelgoers who appreciated the wider musical range. Roger focused the club upon Stax recordings and continued with a huge range of lesser known artists. The subsequent DJ’s at this club followed in his footsteps- keeping the faith! It appears that the name Northern Soul was given in the early 70’s by the Soul City records promoter and music press writer Dave Godin but in fact this scene had been started half a decade previously and with many of the tracks that were in the early 70’s being unearthed as new Northern Soul had already been found and played till their grooves wore out by Roger and his successors. The Twisted Wheel was playing lots of what was then called R&B and Rogers playlist reflected all the early Motown and lots of other great tracks such as the records from the Essex in 63’ (Walking Miracle) and this date is significant as noticed on the Strange World Of Northern Soul by Bob Stevens an early Soul record collector. Sadly Roger is no longer with us and cant put the record straight, however we his friends and admirers can. Many records were played at the Blue Note that also have later been claimed to be discovered only by the latter day ‘Northern’ crowd. Its easy to show some proof of this by looking at Kev Roberts Northern Soul Top 500 its peppered throughout with tracks that we danced too when originally put on the turntables at the Twisted Wheel between 65-67 and at the Blue Not till 1970. These facts are also verifiable by lots of our own friends who remember with great respect and admiration of Roger. He truly was the Grandfather of the Classic period of what was later tagged as Northern Soul. Look at the playlists from individual artists on the Soulbot section of the Manchester Soul website to see all the tracks originally played at Manchester’s Soul clubs before the decade of the 70’s. We all owe a huge debt to Roger for turning us on to Blues, R&B and Soul and the least that can be done is to set the record straight. And another thing the Wheel management had virtually NOTHING to do with the music and the ‘scene’ going on at the club. But please don’t take our comments as an attack on Northern Soul’ we love it and do appreciate the tracks that have been truly discovered, the ones that we missed and we appreciate that! The real difference between the originating Soul scene was that the sixties scene played a mix of slow Soul as well as the faster tracks that the later Northern crowd wanted – thus their scene is better described as focused upon dancing whilst ours was dancing and also listening. Wheel DJ’s Pete Van Dort Roger Eagle Neil Carter Roger Fairhurst (Both mates of Rogers) John Cohen Bobby Derbyshire Quintessential Soul Period Barry Turner: Quintessential Soul Period Brian Rae: Quintessential Soul Period Paul Davis 1967-70 - Quintessential Soul Period Brian Phillips N/Soul period 69/70 Phil Saxe (mate of Paul Davis) Les Cockell 70 - N/Soul Brian Walker
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