There is a basic divisive split in Northern Soul from my experience – those that think Northern Soul is a certain type of “Beat” and those that believe, like me, that it is basically because the music first really came into the country up in the North of England – at the time of recording it, a lot of the “original” Northern soul music (as we called it) was competing with the phenomenon called Motown in Detroit – black artistes saw music as a way out of poverty and many cut demos – this is why the sound “quality” on many recordings sometimes leaves something to be desired and why the other identifier for Northern Soul, the rarity of the original material, happened – people simply couldn’t afford big runs of vinyl. Many of the artists involved failed in the US (I believe this was primarily because there was simply a glut of good material and only room in the charts for so much of it), and many artistes had no idea how big their records were, in this scene, in the UK (classic example was Loleatta Holloway who sang Love Sensation – listen to the song and suddenly you know where “Ride On Time” came from many years later when it was sampled without her knowledge – she sucessfully sued the label Black Box recorded under I believe). Don’t forget these artists were competing with the likes of The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops etc. Did you know that by definition, Edwin Starr is a Northern Soul artist – he made it big in the UK only.

The whole soul scene is still strong in the UK and still not very mainstream, although tracks like “Jennifer Hudson, Spotlight” are popular (Modern Soul track) and of course R&B gets most of its sound and influence from this original scene.

By the way Peter, excellent site – and if you’re into all this stuff at the moment, can I recommend “Searching for Soul” as a book which has a very simple and easy style and shows off what the scene “feels” like from someone who was a part of it. On a loosely related point, I must strongly recommend the new Seal album called “Soul” – its simply brilliant IMHO.

Hope these limited comments add something … all the best everyone

This is nonsense. Although the scene shrank during the 80s, it continued to thrive with the music during this time being more innovative and progressive than at any stage since the early days of the Northern scene. Presumably the person who wrote the above has never heard of the 100 Club, Stafford, HWSC, Morecambe Pier or any other of the allnighters that blossomed in those years.