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News: Russ Winstanleys Heart Of Northern Soul - Vinyl Release

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Glad to see vinyl being made available!

Only heard Love Music vary rarely back in the day on the Yorkshire side of the pennines .

Did not realise it was a Wigan Monster sound.

Ed

Yet again the sleeve notes claim that Wigan was voted best disco in the world by Billboard magazine (The year named as 1978 in lots of other places).

It makes me sad that it keeps getting repeated time and again if it's patently not true.

All copies of Billboard are available online. Somebody just point us to the edition and the page and I will shut up for ever.

No comment necessary unless you know it to be true. I don't want to be accused of taking this thread off-topic.

But this is what Richard Searling said on the subject a while ago.

ST : Did Wigan Casino deserve its title of "Billboard's Best Disco in the World" in 1978?

RS : I m sure it did.  However I think it's extremely odd that we did not celebrate or publicise such an important international accolade at the time.  Neither, to the best of my knowledge, has any official paperwork or trophy ever been produced.   As I was a resident DJ at the venue at the time, working for RCA and playing Billboard Hot Disco releases at the like of Angels in Burnley, I m sure I would not have missed it.  In fact I would have been shouting from the rooftops about it.........go figure!

 

  • Author
2 hours ago, MBarrett said:

Yet again the sleeve notes claim that Wigan was voted best disco in the world by Billboard magazine (The year named as 1978 in lots of other places).

It makes me sad that it keeps getting repeated time and again if it's patently not true.

All copies of Billboard are available online. Somebody just point us to the edition and the page and I will shut up for ever.

No comment necessary unless you know it to be true. I don't want to be accused of taking this thread off-topic.

But this is what Richard Searling said on the subject a while ago.

ST : Did Wigan Casino deserve its title of "Billboard's Best Disco in the World" in 1978?

RS : I m sure it did.  However I think it's extremely odd that we did not celebrate or publicise such an important international accolade at the time.  Neither, to the best of my knowledge, has any official paperwork or trophy ever been produced.   As I was a resident DJ at the venue at the time, working for RCA and playing Billboard Hot Disco releases at the like of Angels in Burnley, I m sure I would not have missed it.  In fact I would have been shouting from the rooftops about it.........go figure!

 

 

 

The front of the programme for 1978  Billboard Magazine Disco Forum IV can be viewed here

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-billboard-magazine-1978-disco-forum

 

description says

' In the back section t are 12 pages with the list of all the nominees and the awards categories such as: Album of the year, "Disco DJ's Favorite 12" Disco-Disc", Artist, Label, Composer, etc. for the Billboards Disco Awards Banquet. '

you can't see the list, but does sort of seem possible to me that there was also a 'best disco/club' award, after all there must be something to it all, as its not the sort of thing you could make up out of nothing

At the time Billboard held these international disco forum each year, so imo it may be possible that the award was given/mentioned at one of these events and as an independent stand alone Billboard thing the award/s never got mentioned in the main mag

I did read somewhere once that the award was given due to the amount of members - as in it was  given more for being the worlds biggest not the best disco/club

Maybe the story is that there was a mention/award at a Billboard related annual disco related event, but that got stretched a bit into something bigger ?

 

 

5 hours ago, mike said:

 

 

The front of the programme for 1978  Billboard Magazine Disco Forum IV can be viewed here

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-billboard-magazine-1978-disco-forum

 

description says

' In the back section t are 12 pages with the list of all the nominees and the awards categories such as: Album of the year, "Disco DJ's Favorite 12" Disco-Disc", Artist, Label, Composer, etc. for the Billboards Disco Awards Banquet. '

you can't see the list, but does sort of seem possible to me that there was also a 'best disco/club' award, after all there must be something to it all, as its not the sort of thing you could make up out of nothing

At the time Billboard held these international disco forum each year, so imo it may be possible that the award was given/mentioned at one of these events and as an independent stand alone Billboard thing the award/s never got mentioned in the main mag

I did read somewhere once that the award was given due to the amount of members - as in it was  given more for being the worlds biggest not the best disco/club

Maybe the story is that there was a mention/award at a Billboard related annual disco related event, but that got stretched a bit into something bigger ?

 

 

Hopefully there is a member on here who has full access to that particular issue of Billboard and can reproduce that list of best disco or club.

Also, having read most of the books on the story of discos in the US in the 70's , it  leads to another question abut the sheer scale and numbers attending Wigan each week  ... was it 1500 at its peak ? As I understand it none of the legendary US discos like The Gallery and The Loft came close to those numbers did they ?

Was Paradise Garage the first truly large scale dance venue in the US ? 

 

I went to Rotters and Romeo and Juliets for completely different reasons than why I went to Wigan Casino and the like.

Not sure disco was the right label for it..

Ed

I believe that the Billboard 'Best Disco' label (so Kev told me) was based on claimed membership (200k+) and Billboard assuming that the members would all vote for their own club - had it been Troggs in Hull (yes there was one, with the same sparkly batcave decor as Pete tells me Farnworth had) with 210k membership the IT would have been awarded the world's best.

Dx

Pretty good compilation actually with the exception of Cherry People and Cobblestone...nice to see Love Music on there

46 minutes ago, Roburt said:

From Billboard mag at that time ... 

DiscoForum78.jpg

Some of the winners of the categories that DID exist with their awards.

OK. I'm done. Cross my heart. :)

Disc1.jpg

Cherry people my God .whilst most of the album is I rly solid stuff Cherry People track is an embarrassment and should never have been played on any soul scene 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I had a big thread about the billboard story on my Facebook, my personal opinion it was an advertising white lie that spiralled out of control. Russ didn't comment on the post but instead personal messaged me to say Billboard magazine rang him to tell him about winning the competition.... Hmmm 

48 minutes ago, BackstreetNiter said:

I had a big thread about the billboard story on my Facebook, my personal opinion it was an advertising white lie that spiralled out of control. Russ didn't comment on the post but instead personal messaged me to say Billboard magazine rang him to tell him about winning the competition.... Hmmm 

an advertising white lie = a load of bollox? :thumbsup:

On 10/5/2017 at 20:17, MBarrett said:

Some of the winners of the categories that DID exist with their awards.

OK. I'm done. Cross my heart. :)

Disc1.jpg

Top left picture.... I didnt know Ritchie Benaud was into the music.

 

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