Northern Soul - Floorshakers!

Link de descarga (rapidshare)

1. The Cavaliers: Hold On To My Baby
2. Lorraine Chandler: I Can't Change
3. The Metros: Since I Found My Baby
4. The Exciters: Blowing Up My Mind
5. The Dynamics: I Need Your Love
6. Sonny Till: Tears & Misery
7. Willie Kendrick: What's That On Your Finger?
8. Ketty Lester: Some things Are Better Left Unsaid
9. Herb Ward: Honest To Goodness
10. Sharon Scott: Could It Be You?
11. Willie Hutch: Lucky To Be Loved By You
12. Carolyn Cooke: I Don't Mind
13. Percy Wiggins: It Didn't Take Much (For Me To Fall In Love)
14. Rose Valentine: I've Gotta Know Right Now
15. Don Ray: Born A Loser
16. Sue Lynne: Don't Pity Me
17. Roy Hamilton: You Shook Me Up
18. James Walsh Gypsy Band: Cuz It's You, Girl
19. Laura Greene: Moonlight, Music And You
20. Kenny Carter: Gotta Get Myself Together

Output format: MP3

Bitrate: 160 kbps

NorthernSoul: a passing phase that has lasted thirty years and simply refuses to die. Musical fashions come and go, from doo-wop to disco, glam rock to grunge, but the one certain quality about this fanatically followed, captivating offshoot of soul is its endurance. Needless to say, it's brilliant music to boot, sounding just as vibrant, just as poignant in the nineties as it did back in the heady days of the sixties and seventies.

As the R & B of early sixties' club soul dovetailed into the emerging uptown sophistication of labels such as Motown and Atlantic, the fertile seeds of northern soul were already sown. Devotees of this new genre rapidly realized that the chart-based successes achieved by Berry Gordy's 'Hitsville U.S.A.' operation merely scratched the surface of soul music - beneath the tip of this formidable iceberg was a wealth of obscure material from talented artists frequently emerging on small labels with shoestring budgets. Many of these forty fives were 'broken' on the U.K. northern soul scene, in clubs willing to move towards a more specialist direction than your average Tiffany's ever dared.

Venues such as the Twisted Wheel in Manchester, the Golden Torch at Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, the Blackpool Mecca, and most famous of all, the legendary Wigan Casino with its one hundred thousand membership played host to soul in the last lane. A thousand sweaty bodies strutting their choreographed stuff (no dancing round handbags) on a sprung wooden dance floor: northern soul is contagious!

Based on the Motown four four beat, northern soul (originating from Detroit, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia to name but five cities) was thus called to distinguish it from the Sly Stone, James Brown, funk-centered music dominating the London area during the latter part of the sixties and early seventies.

Most, but not all, northern clubs tended to be based north of Watford. Inspired by music-mad jocks including messes Levine, Winstanley, Roberts and Searling, the fame of the Casino and Mecca spread like wild fire during northern soul's peak period of the seventies, as each weekend thousands of dance-crazy amphetamine-fuelled youngsters loyally queued with their insignia-covered sport bags (towel, talcum powder and spare top de rigueur) to practice over-elaborate spins and acrobatic back-drops to the latest imports. Attired in styles ranging from polo shirts to vests and the ubiquitous flares, punters traveled from all corners of the country to listen to and perhaps buy favorite forty fives.

Music as good as this was never likely to be played on Radio One! Interest level remained high but with the closure, one by one, of the major clubs (mainly busted for drugs) and the emergence of modern soul, the northern scene dipped towards the back end of the seventies and into the eighties. The young tearaway had matured, settled down, raised a family, shopped at a local supermarket each Saturday and become respectable. Leisure time was limited.

Admittedly there was and still is a hardcore of zealots determined to keep the faith come what may. The former Mecca maniac or Casino connoisseur may have hang up the flares, curbed the whirlwind dancing and fallen behind on the mortgage repayments, but the sustained interest and enthusiasm remains.

Although northern soul covers a range of tempos, from beat ballad to dervish dancer, it has always been the stompers, which have appealed the most. For sheer pulse-racing, heart-beating, gut-busting, mind-blowing sounds, northern soul is par excellence.

CHRIS CONROY

(December 1995)