Review: The Twisted Wheel - Land Of A Thousand Dances - Charly Records

Land Of A Thousand Dances -The Twisted Wheel 60th Anniversary LP

The Twisted Wheel started life on Brazennose Street in Manchester as The Left Wing Coffee House ,but by the end of 1962 it had been acquired by The Abadi brothers and changed its name to The Twisted Wheel .With a diet of hip jazz and blues ,with the highly influential DJ Roger Eagle and top class live acts like Spencer Davies ,Graham Bond ,John Lee Hooker ,Bo Diddley ,John Mayall etc ,it soon became THE club to visit .

However towards the end of 1965 ,the Blues and Jazz sound was sounding a little stale ,accompanied by the emergence of Mod ,and the punters wanting to hear the more uptempo and Soulful sounds of Motown and Stax , which probably led in some part towards the move to a new Twisted Wheel venue on Whitworth Street .

This great new compilation from Charly Records reflects that later ,more uptempo Soulful sound with 16 tracks selected by legendary Wheel DJ and record dealer / Collector Brian 45 Phillips .Many of the selections were pretty obscure and deleted soon after release ,despite receiving UK releases on labels like Stateside ,President ,Fontana and Sue .The title of the album was inspired by the heading in The Dave Godin column in Blues And Soul magazine ,which really brought The Wheel nationwide attention .As well as a diet of ever rarer records served up by DJs like Brian Rae ,Brian Walker ,Phil Saxe ,Les Cockell and the already mentioned Brian Phillips ,the Wheel also played host to the top Soul acts of the day like Edwin Starr ,Junior Walker ,Ben E.King and Ike & Tina Turner .It’s great that a quality compilation like this has been released on the 60th anniversary of The Twisted Wheel , thanks to Richard Searling for the concept ,and Black America for the music .