Northern Soul - "A Way of Life"

This site is dedicated to rare 1960's Detroit / Motown style soul music, and the American writers, artists and performers who recorded them. Most of the music failed in chart success at the time of it's release. It became lost amongst an abundance of black music, in a scene which must have been similar to the Punk era of the late 1970's in the U.K. A huge wealth of music was recorded to try and satisfy the hunger for soul/r&b on a world wide scale.

Black music had always been popular in the U.K. Records were arriving through most major sea ports north & south and clubs in the particularily in the north of England started to play rarer & rarer soul records, and an underground scene developed. Clubs like, The Twisted Wheel and The Torch and paved the way and other clubs like Blackpool Mecca and probably the most well known venue of all, Wigan Casino, took the scene through it's most popular period of the mid 1970's.

Northern Soul as it became known, spread the length and breadth of the U.K. and beyond. During the seventies almost every disco, dance or youth club, would be playing sixties Northern Soul music at some point in the evening. The artists were revered as gods, and the labels treasured as if they were found in a pharoe's tomb.

Most of the original Northern Soul clubs have long since closed, to be replaced by others. The 100 club in London is the longest running Northern Soul venue in the country. Today the scene is healthy and that is a credit to the music itself.

Click the links to the left and you will be able to see rare Northern Soul record label scans, click them & you can play them, favourite tracks, trivia, links to other Northern Soul sites and lots of other stuff, and don't forget to let me know what you think.

Click on the links on the left to go to that page. Most pages contain playable real audio files!