Still Not Souled Out

In the next week or so shooting begins on a new film entitled “Souled Out”, here in Stoke. For the last few weeks, my youngest son, who is a freelance film cameraman, has been working on the film in preparation for shooting. The subject of the film is close to my heart – Northern Soul. I would have quite liked a part dancing in the film, but its set in 1974, and at that time there were not many Northern Soul dancers in their mid 50’s. Both then and now, Northern Soul was, and is, a phenomena, and what is significant for me, a largely working class phenomena.

Watching some of the programmes, today, of past decades, TV gives a very distorted picture of reality. In the 1960’s youth culture was divided effectively between Mods and Rockers. The Mods were listening to The Small Faces, Amen Corner, and the Who, whilst the Rockers were listening to Elvis and Heavy Metal. Even at that stage, by the mid 60’s, although the Beatles sold lots of records, and managed to get followed around by lots of screaming young teenagers, they did not really fit into either category. They were largely listened to by what would become known as teenyboppers, their parents, for whom the Beatles were safe, and by all those who participated in youth culture vicariously through the TV and listening to Top of the Pops. I remember seeing an interview some time ago with Sandie Shaw and Cynthia Lennon, and the latter was somewhat put off by a comment by the former that nobody who was really “in” listened to the Beatles.  In fact, I can remember, one day, when I was about 13, going home and telling my sister that there was a great new Beatles song out, to which she replied she’d heard it, and it was rubbish. She was 8 years older than me, and had been going dancing for several years, and was, by this time, well into listening to R&B to Rufus Thomas, Long John Baldry and the Soul Sisters who were regulars at local clubs.

By around 1967 the Mods and Rockers division had broken down, and, now, the division was between those, like me, who were into Motown and Black Music, and the headbangers into Heavy Metal. At school, that again was the division with just a few of the kids, who didn’t really fit in, still listening to Top of the Pops. At school from around the third year – it was a very small village school – we had use of a common room, with an old record player. For a while, you might here Mick Jagger thumping out Honky Tonk Women, but, mostly, the school corridors resounded to the sound of the Four Tops, Supremes, Temptations, Edwin Starr, and Martha and the Vandellas.

Half the people had long hair and went off to pop concerts like that at Madeley where Mungo Jerry came to short lived prominence, whilst the other half of us, were practising our dance steps, tricks, and going up to Rosina Ward’s junk shop in Hanley to look for soul records from years gone by that people had thrown out. By the time I was 14 I was going to the Golden Torch in Tunstall, which, a few years later, was to become an icon on the Northern Soul scene, and venue for people from all over Europe. In the week the Torch used to open its doors often for free, or else there would be a 6d (2.5p) entrance charge, and free beer for the first half hour. 

The Torch, which had been a cinema, had, in the early sixties, been a Mod venue, featuring many of the top Mod acts of the time. In fact, when I first started going there was still a strong Mod influence, and the dominant personality was a guy called Tombo, also known as King of the Mods, and his three friends. In fact, still, at the time, there were Mod v Rocker bust ups with scooters left outside the Torch getting trashed, resulting in a subsequent visit to Gracy’s Café, in Burslem, by Tombo and his friends, who proceeded to throw a couple of motorbikes through the café window. 

In fact, in those early years, fights inside the club were a nightly occurrence, and the police and police dogs were equally frequent not just to stop fights that got out of control with people being thrown off balconies and so on, but also because it gave them a good reason to come in to look for drugs. In fact, although the Torch was no worse than any other venue at the time, for drugs, it had that reputation, and the council were continually trying to close it down. They eventually succeeded in 1973, but on Environmental Health grounds. In fact, a few years ago, I was working with the EHO who was responsible, and I didn’t hold it against him honest.

But, by the late 60’s, Motown and what was becoming known as Northern Soul was, as far as dance clubs were concerned, all pervasive. Not only were clubs opening up all over the place, but existing clubs were looking for DJ’s who had Northern Soul collections, because that was all anyone wanted to be played. When I left school in 1970 I was dancing every night of the week – its no wonder that we were all so thin then, because I can’t remember ever thinking of going to a pub let alone out to eat, rather than go out dancing.

In addition to the Torch every youth club ran discos playing Motown and Northern, every Labour Club and Workingmen’s Club had Soul nights. Like many other kids, at the time, who had grown up with the Torch I had, by then, a sizeable collection of records of my own, and, again, like many others, used them to DJ at various youth clubs – not, of course, for money, but just because we loved the music. It wasn’t surprising that, when I started work, as a Stoke Council trainee, I came across another trainee. Trevor Harley, who was a Torch regular. In fact he worked at the Torch.

When I got the sack by the council, within the year, for causing trouble, by going to the union with a complaint, I was out of work for a while, and started to work myself at the Torch, with Trev's help.   Again, of course, not for money, but to get in free, and, in return for doing a bit of glass collecting, free drinks. And I was also able to do a bit of DJ’ing too. During the day, I spent a lot of time with Keith Minshull.  I remember walking around Hanley, and Burslem, both eating large, family sized, Wright's meat and potato pies, as well as sitting listening to records in Bew's in Burslem.

In fact, it was around this time that it was decided to rearrange the inside of the club. There had been a central round stage in the middle of the dance floor going back to the Mod days, and it was decided to get rid of that, because it hindered dancing. The DJ’s booth, which was always getting bounced, when a fight broke out, we moved from one end of the dance floor up on to a raised area which would originally have been where the cinema screen was. I was still only about 17, and, for me, this was absolutely great.

Around that time, we also started to get a lot of US acts coming to the club. They were great too. On many occasions, I’ve sat, before we opened, talking in Chris Burton, the Manager’s, office, with Edwin Starr, Junior Walker, Arthur Conley and many others. When the Elgins came, they all chipped in helping to unload their gear from the entry behind the club. What I think gelled was that this was music listened to and danced to by young working class people, and sung by American working class people. Most of the Motown artists were from black working class families in Detroit, and the same was true of the other main centres in Chicago, and, of course, down in the South with all the Stax artists like Sam and Dave.

In fact, with many of the artists that came to prominence when Northern Soul really took off they had often gone back to work, or never gave it up, singing as a side line. Many of them were amazed to be asked to come to Britain or to Europe where they were famous. The renovations we did in the club heralded, also, the beginning, in addition to bringing over these big acts, to also becoming a more hard line Northern venue, and the beginning of All Nighters. Dancers began to come from all over the North West, and later even from Europe. People who came just for the music, and to dance weren’t interested in fighting, and that disappeared overnight.

And dancing became for most young blokes THE thing. By this time, I’d been dancing for several years, and for every night for several hours solid. In fact, when I went back to college for a few months, between jobs, I used to dance every dinner time in the Northern Soul disco we ran at the College. Back in the day, I was no mean dancer, able to do all the spins, back drops, splits and other tricks demonstrated in the videos opposite, and more besides.

Like many more Northern Soul fans, I have continued to go, on and off, to various All Nighters and events held at Keele University, and Stoke Town Hall (where the dance scenes for the film are being done), which now, again, regularly attracts large numbers of people from Europe, particularly from Sweden. In fact, a year ago it was a friend of mine’s 50th Birthday. He had been, some years ago, a T&G convenor at a local Lucas plant. He had also been a member of my LP Branch and local councillor. After being made redundant he became a Trade Union Studies lecturer alongside a miner friend of mine from back in the '84 Strike. His birthday party was held at the Port Vale Social Club and was filled with lots of Labour Movement friends. But he is also a Northern Soul aficionado, and the music for the night reflected the fact. I hate to see an empty dance floor so that was my first port of call, which resulted in an ovation for my solo effort.

Later in the evening, after a great deal of sweat, I took a brief rest. A woman came along and bent down to speak in my ear. “I don’t know who you are, but you are the best Soul dancer I’ve seen,” she said. I have to say that I was a bit flustered by this, as it didn’t look good sitting next to my wife to have some woman come along and start whispering in my ear, and I’m afraid to say that, in my embarrassment, I was probably a bit rude to the woman, in not thanking her for her compliments!

I don’t know much about the film. My son has read the script but I wouldn’t compromise him by asking too much about it. What I do know is that its set in 1974, year of the great, second Miners' victory that kicked Heath’s Tories out of Government. The Miners had also won in 1972, and I remember, at that time, I had just started going out with my wife. In Burslem, where I worked, there was a record shop called Bews. Not only was it the outlet for all the latest Northern records – many of them bootlegged – but it was staffed by DJ’s. I remember a big argument one day, obviously when the strike must have just started between one of the DJ’s who was supporting the Miners, and the owner of the shop, who for fairly obvious reasons, wasn’t. I think shortly after he opened his own shop.

Although, the film is not, specifically, set in Stoke, the actors have been having coaching lessons to try to grasp the Potteries accent, something which my son has also been able to help the language coach with, in addition to providing location information. The only other thing I know is that the main character decides that they want to know more about Northern Soul, and decides, in order to find out, to go to Wigan Casino, the club which took over the mantle of the Torch after it closed in 1973. A bit shaky on the plot, there, because, as I said, at the time, everyone knew what Northern Soul was, and you didn’t need to go to Wigan to find out, just go to your youth club, school disco, Workingmen’s club and so on. Still I’m not complaining about a film about Northern Soul, and with Duffy going to Number 1, with a Northern Soul revival, it all seems good to me. Perhaps I might get a job as an extra playing some old duffer collecting money in the cloakroom.

Try These stormers: Eddie Parker - I'm Gone and Eddie Parker - Love You Baby and finally Gil Scott Heron