Talk:Northern soul

message: There's discission of Mowtown and Paliment in the article. How is that relevant?  
Lenbrazil (talk) 13:13, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Irrelevent Content? 

message: I think it is time to expand this page with a list of the main DJs on the scene, the period of residency at each club plus a comprehensive list of the actual venues/clubs. 
Also, I think the section about Artists and records is misleading and lacking in many important details.                    
:There was a venue in the south of England which actually mirrored The Twisted Wheel in Manchester. It was called The Marina in Portsmouth Hampshire 1967-1972. The Wheel and The Marina played the same records with a few variations of artist. Both mentioned in Blues and Soul magazine. The dancing style was different as the Marina danced in line and the wheel was more individual. In 1972 the Marina changed names and most of the regulars there had to travel up north to hear similar music at The Torch in Tunstall, Stoke on Trent and The Mecca, Blackpool, where the southern style of dancing was dropped in favour of the more individualistic northern style  Mick Sinden--Mick Sinden (talk) 15:30, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: DJs and clubs

message: From the article:  "It has nothing to with the "Northern USA" per se. ... from northern cities like Detroit and Chicago (in contrast to southern styles like Memphis soul)."  
I find this confusing.  The article says, that Northern Soul has nothing to do with the "Northern USA," yet then goes on to make the distinction between Detroit/Chicago and southern styles like Memphis a sentence or so later.  I think this needs to be re-done to be a bit more clear. Oswald Glinkmeyer 03:09, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification needed 

message: I wouldn't recommend this article to anyone as it stands. The reference to northern USA is plain misleading, right at the start (though I understand the writer may be trying to convey the flavour of much NS by referring to Motown, Detroit, Chicago). 
"Northern" = northern UK, as pointed out, and besides, heaps of songs deemed "Northern Soul" are from southern states anyway, or even from outside the US.  And can you say it's a "musical style"? It's like saying "British Invasion" is a musical style. I'd rewrite, but it'd be good to see some more discussion here firs
To be more precise northern ENGLAND as the areas where Northern soul originally emanated from were in northern England (on a UK scale they would be mid-UK and no-one talks about northern UK anyway unless they were talking about Scotland.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.98.80.38 (talk) 12:29, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misleading 

message: I think the N in Nothern should always be capitalised here, see here. Maikel (talk) 00:31, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Northern or northern

message: I think the page doesn't feature enough examples of northern soul tracks. Could we make a list and then integrate them into the article? Sebmcateer (talk) 20:05, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Examples 

message: "Duffy's single Mercy features dancers performing the spins and flips that are commonly associated with northern soul in the video. The song also has a very northern soul sounding feel to it."
Well let's see.  The organ riff is the piano riff from Connie Francis's 'Falling', that heavy synth riff is the staccato guitar riff from Connie Francis's 'Falling', and the melody line is strangely similar to - er - Connie Francis's 'Falling'.
Mercy is pure rock'n'roll played on modern hardware.  Of course I'm not allowed to say this on here cos I worked it out for myself and that's not allowed.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deke42 (talk • contribs) 02:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duffy? 

message: The opening line of this article says that Northern soul was a movement, but it uses a genre box and it is placed in the Template:soulmusic with genres. Normally musical genres have an internal awareness and the acts involved in creating and developing them are are affected by that awareness. Northern soul of course did not do this, it selects existing music which is part of other sub-genres. Although it has an impact on later British musicians, it is not itself a genre. This is not to say that it is not important, but that it is worth considering the way it has been categorised. Perhaps the infobox should be changed and it could be moved in the soul music template to reflect this.--Sabrebd (talk) 16:28, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Genre or movement?

message: I wouldn't want to add to the list of artists unnecessarily, but given articles like this one should some mention be made of Major Lance?  Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:51, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's one of the problems with a subject like Northern Soul that there are myriad artists like Major Lance who deserve a mention.  By its very nature NS is totally fragmented and whilst I see Lance as a founding father of the scene others will argue that his very popularity disqualifies him from the title.  There could also be the problem that Lance's sound was entirely the work of Curtis Mayfield, so still others would argue that he, not Lance, deserves the accolades.  Then you get involved in the Mayfield/Motown furore... Deke42 (talk) 01:51, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notable artists 

message: I'm no expert on Northern Soul patches but the three venue examples currently illustrating the article look very much to me like reproductions. The reason being that each of them has the start and end dates of the venue concerned, clearly therefore they wouldn't have been worn by those involved in the scene at those venues as is strongly implied because the venues would have been closed when these were produced. I know this is a minor point as the actual designs on the patches are faithful to the originals, but in the interest of factual accuracy perhaps the photo descriptions should be amended to point out that they are reproduction memorabilia (I have seen an original of the Wigan Casino one without the dates embroidered on it).Thunderbuck ram (talk) 08:00, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photographs of patches 

message: Chris Peacock (2001). Hardman Eddie: Dancing Tough. Echo Ltd Publishing. 
Does this book actually exist in the form stated? I can find no reference to it on the internet, the ISBN number appears to be invalid and the named publishers are a newspaper/magazine company. Furthermore, it is not cited anywhere in the text of the page. I would love it if there is yet another book about Northern soul out there top add to the historical record but this one seems to be very elusive Lebkuchenteile (talk) 17:42, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed this book, and the "Pete Kreisler" book, from the article. They are not referred to in the article, the ISBNs were invalid, and I do not believe they exist. Anyone who inserts them should provide a valid external reference to the books themselves and a reason for inserting them in the article. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:15, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dancing Tough by Chris Peacock 

message: I'm confused: the intro says "The recordings most prized by enthusiasts of the genre are usually by lesser-known artists, and were initially released only in limited numbers, often by small regional United States labels".  North Soul is a British genre - does this mean it such recordings were only released in the US in limited numbers? Were they released in greater numbers, and were artists better-known, in the UK?  This very much needs clarification. Gymnophoria (talk) 19:28, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Essentially the story is that many obscure regional US releases on small local labels were brought across or imported to the UK, and then became popular among Northern soul fans in Britain.  In some cases they were reissued by labels in Britain, but in many other cases they were not reissued for many years and could only be heard in those clubs where their owners, the DJs, played them. Single copies of rare records, originally from small labels in the US, often changed hands for hundreds or thousands of pounds sterling in the UK - their rarity gave them enormous cachet.  To me, the article seems to explain that well - what is the problem with it?  Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:54, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misleading US POV? 

message: I find these articles fascinating - I grew up in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in the 70's, Northern Soul was something I'd heard of - I'd seen the patches around - but it seemed like a Lancashire thing. Growing up I saw the back end of the hippies, and the emergence from mod (which was before my time) of skinheads & crombie boys - the crombie boys were closer to what could be defined as Northern Soul - it doesn't make sense to say one person was part of this or that - the fashions merged. Football hooligans were a dominant culture, and in the very early 70's embraced long hair and rocker chic; before giving way very definitely to a skinhead look, and the crombie/harrington/ben sherman look. This sometimes coincided with music but sometimes not - and a swing back towards rocker style denim occurred - remember that bands like Slade and T. Rex were huge (Slade were originally a skinhead band). When you went to youth clubs the sounds playing reflected a wide range of stuff - there was Heavy Metal starting to emerge from the more hippy/rocker stuff, all of the Glam rock stuff, the girly stuff like Bay City Rollers, Jackson 5 and the Osmonds, and as a kind of backdrop to it all there was Motown - ever present and always there. I honestly never thought about whether I liked it - but somewhere along the line I listened to loads of it.
When I met Northern soulies (soulie being a bit of a perjorative term of abuse) from Lancashire in the very late 70's I realised a number of things - one was that the Motown hits they'd been playing down the youth club for years were the bread and butter for these guys (but not the meat in the sandwich), and I knew them all. I also knew quite a few of the obscure tunes as well, but had never twigged them as being Northern soul - I couldn't understand why it should be called Northern soul, when a lot of it came from the southern states. The instrumental "The Flasher" by Mistura was I'm a told, a Northern Classic - I never knew - but I listened to every single time I walked into a youth club for many years.
Secondly I found out that the Northern Club scene was very big in places like Leeds, Bradford, and Huddersfield - right on my doorstep - but I'd never even heard of them. Leeds Central apparently was one of the biggest venues on the circuit. Dave Ball of Soft Cell was certainly influenced by Northern Soul, but whether he was a regular at Blackpool or Wigan I've no idea - I'd think it far more likely that he attended Leeds Central - and I'm fairly sure that there were soul nights at more mainstream clubs like Tiffany's in Leeds.
Dave Ball and Marc Almond were very much part of the Leeds scene when the New Romantic era came in and I'm fairly sure they DJ'd at the Warehouse and at Amnesia (formerly the Yorkshire Crown off City Square) - I use the term DJ in it's more loose traditional definition of 'spinning the records' rather than any mixing and mashing - although they may have.
So anyway I now love the Northern Soul sound, and sort of have the right pedigree - it wasn't until a good while after I left the North that I realised it though.
78.32.193.115 (talk) 20:36, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Northern but not "Northern" - and Dave Ball 

message: You state that the "Image has no non-free rationale for use here" but I think this is mistaken. The early Northern soul movement - a White, northern-English, working class youth culture - identified itself, through music, with the imagery and sloganeering of the Afro-American civil rights movement. The 'clenched black fist' logo is now wholly associated with the Northern soul movement - you will see it used on compilation albums, in films, documentaries etc. People might be curious as to why that is so and I believe the Carlos Smith image and the associated quote from Dave Godin give a very clear illustration. Hope you agree!Lebkuchenteile (talk) 23:07, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Deletion of Carlos-Smith.jpg by Peripitus

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Northern soul. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090301043725/http://www.soul-source.co.uk:80/rare-northern-soul-words/rare-northern-soul-articles/the-twisted-wheel-blues-and-soul-by-dave-godin to http://www.soul-source.co.uk/rare-northern-soul-words/rare-northern-soul-articles/the-twisted-wheel-blues-and-soul-by-dave-godin
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090301043725/http://www.soul-source.co.uk:80/rare-northern-soul-words/rare-northern-soul-articles/the-twisted-wheel-blues-and-soul-by-dave-godin to http://www.soul-source.co.uk/rare-northern-soul-words/rare-northern-soul-articles/the-twisted-wheel-blues-and-soul-by-dave-godin
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20100827222503/http://myirontongue.com:80/wordpress/?p=156 to http://myirontongue.com/wordpress/?p=156
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20140226102531/http://countdownbooks.com/dir/?page_id=298 to http://countdownbooks.com/dir/?page_id=298
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 07:33, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Northern soul. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20151019073257/http://www.uppers.org/showArticle.asp?article=383 to http://www.uppers.org/showArticle.asp?article=383
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 01:14, 10 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I'm minded to revert the entirety of this unexplained edit by  as unhelpful and confusing, but will hold back while awaiting some explanation here.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:45, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Modern soul" 

message: I have removed the non-free copyrighted photographs of the Northern sole patches per WP:NFCCP as there are free alternatives to illustrate this article, such as this version of the clenched fist logo, for example. So these non-free images are not allowed. However, I am making a note that some other Northern sole patch logos may not meet the threshold of originality for copyright if they only consist of simple geometric shapes or text. So if anyone feels strongly about their removal, creating an SVG based upon a patch could be allowable if this is satisfied. --Voello talk 19:50, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed non-free photographs of patches 

message: The Northern Soul Phenomenon: Wigan Casino and Its Enduring Legacy
Introduction
In the late 1960s and 1970s, amidst the industrial backdrop of Northern England, a musical subculture emerged that would leave an indelible mark on the world of music and dance. Northern Soul, characterized by its high-energy, rare soul and Motown tracks, became a movement of its own, and at its epicenter was the legendary Wigan Casino nightclub. This article explores the roots of Northern Soul and the iconic role played by Wigan Casino in shaping its vibrant culture and enduring legacy.
The Birth of Northern Soul
Northern Soul was more than just a musical genre; it was a cultural phenomenon that offered an escape from the bleak economic and social landscape of Northern England. The movement originated in the mod and mod-revival scenes of the mid-1960s, with DJs and collectors seeking out obscure American soul and R&B records that had been overlooked in their homeland.
Wigan Casino: The Mecca of Northern Soul
Wigan Casino, a former jazz and dancehall venue, became the epicenter of the Northern Soul scene. Located in Wigan, a town in Greater Manchester, the Casino hosted its first Northern Soul all-nighter in 1973, and from that moment on, it became a mecca for soul enthusiasts from all over the UK. Its iconic central dancefloor, illuminated by hundreds of fluorescent lights, created an electric atmosphere where dancers would showcase their acrobatic spins and flips.
The Music: Rare, Uplifting, and Authentic
What set Northern Soul apart was its devotion to rare and obscure records. DJs like Russ Winstanley and Richard Searling tirelessly scoured record shops and import stores to find tracks that hadn't received airplay or chart success in the US. These records often featured passionate, raw vocals, and foot-stomping beats that resonated with the Northern Soul crowd.
The Dancers: Athleticism and Individuality
Northern Soul was not just about the music; it was also about the dancers. The Casino's dancefloor was a spectacle in itself, with dancers performing intricate spins, flips, and acrobatics. Dancers took pride in their individuality and unique styles, which added to the sense of community within the scene.
The Decline and Legacy
Wigan Casino's heyday didn't last forever. As the 1970s gave way to the 1980s, the scene began to lose its momentum. The Casino closed its doors for the last time in 1981, marking the end of an era. However, the spirit of Northern Soul lived on. The music and dance styles continued to influence subsequent generations of musicians and dancers.
Today, Northern Soul remains a cherished subculture with a global following. Wigan Casino's legacy endures through documentaries, books, and reunions that celebrate the music, the dancing, and the community it fostered.
Conclusion
Northern Soul, with its passionate devotion to rare music and its vibrant dance culture, found its ultimate home at Wigan Casino. This unassuming nightclub in a Northern English town became a symbol of the resilience of working-class youth, providing an escape from their daily struggles through music, dance, and camaraderie. The legacy of Wigan Casino and Northern Soul lives on, a testament to the enduring power of music to bring people together and transcend time and place. Wc1957 (talk) 19:14, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: What, if anything, in the current Wikipedia page, do you think should be changed?  Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:21, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Northern Soul Phenomenon: Wigan Casino and Its Enduring Legacy Introduction 

message: I don't think it means what you think it means 185.139.140.82 (talk) 11:50, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I do.   Adherents often avoided or shunned the more commercially successful labels, such as Motown.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:50, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eschews