Always intrigued me from my earliest days of being interested in Soul music, where do we as individuals consider the line to be between Northern Soul and Disco? Many sounds popular on the NS scene, to me, and often to the original artists themselves belong in the category of early Disco. Benny Troy being an obvious example, Benny stated in interviews that when he made IWGYT he was aiming it squarely at the Disco movement with a view to having a hit in the Studio 54 vein. Another example huge to the NS scene is Bits 'n' Pieces KORA, an obvious deviation from sounds such as The Belles, Jackie Lee, Bobby Relf/Garrett.

Interested to hear other people's personal views on where the line is drawn from Blues/Jazz/Funk/Soul/Disco obviously the term 'Crossover' was adopted from the whole 'Fusion' idea of different genres bleeding into one another, everyone is going to have a different view on this as their level of tolerance within the music will have an effect as to where their personal line is drawn, some not being fans of the other genres that combine to make the variety of music that we have termed 'Northern Soul'. Nowadays there is great variety within the canon with Delta Blues sounds coming in as well as the RnB side, a couple of examples of what can only be described as Blues that have taken off on the scene would be Hayes Cotton 'Black Wings Has My Angel' and Jimmy Frazer 'Of Hopes And Dreams And Tombstones'.

So yeah, obvs no definitive answer this is gonna be a personal take on what makes a record fall into the Disco bracket, perhaps to the point where we wouldn't want to hear it at a Soul event.

Sounds posted to illustrate the point most welcome!  

 

Think it's all going a bit tuts up when you are giving credit to the Bee gees and Abba on a soul music forum 

On 13/10/2018 at 14:31, polyvelts said:

You mean this ?

 

Or this but sounds good on this tune.

 

Edited October 15, 20186 yr by autumnstoned

the blurred line...moves around a lttle with me.

The passage of time, and memory of place, makes the line shift every now and again. Some times i'm more tolerant than others. Some i was reminded of recently...i could see myself dancing to Brothers Guiding Light now-but not then. I still can't get stuff like the Biddu Orchestra, 'Theme from exodus', or Betty Wright, 'Where is the love'. 

This is what disco does to a decent tune , like chalky said the money men moved in and milked it dry , 

 

On ‎12‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 22:43, professorturnups said:

This subject has been debated continuously for donkeys years. I remember Richard Searling posted his modern soul top 50 in about 1982 and the words disco music were fired at him. His reply was that the club djs of the day would have rejected 49 of those tracks on dance beat alone with only Arthur Adams "You got the floor" being accepted.

Mark C😜

Ps...True Image always reminds me of Gonzalez - I haven't stopped dancing yet....

It's not just me then  😄

 

5 hours ago, Citizen P said:

It's not just me then  😄

 

There is a similarity with Gonzales but...

Try New York City 'I'm doin' fine now' on the previous page. Same tune as True Image. One classed as Disco one as Modern Soul, same tune, same beat, same speed, similar release dates. Hence I posted them, seems to have been lost in translation, too subtle perhaps as I didn't spell it out. 

I'll listen again.

 

Blackpools Highland room late 70's blurred the line for me, not that i'm against mid 70's sounds each to their own but I remember feeling the change had come & I wasn't feeling to comfortable with it at the time

Just a few I remember 

Kirsty

On 13/10/2018 at 09:43, Steve S 60 said:

For me, this comes to mind.......

 

brilliant tune, whether soul or disco.........

Bobby: Modern Soul - Vicki Sue: Disco - Both brilliant, but Vicki Sue Robinson defo the more 'Northern' and the more played - a favourite at the Whitney-Carnes:
 

 

 

Edited October 21, 20186 yr by DaveNPete

Some great posts comin' in on this one now!

Just wondering, where wold this be pigeonholed 

I would say Northern/ 70's/  modern or maybe cross-over. Or who gives a f, just dance

7 hours ago, gogs said:

Just wondering, where wold this be pigeonholed 

I would say Northern/ 70's/  modern or maybe cross-over. Or who gives a f, just dance

Italo-disco

A couple that came out (and were massive on the Dance Floors) for that Funky Shuffle Style Dancing were these Bad Boys that Rattled A Few Bars! with People. 

 

 

 

 

Just spent an hour re-listening to all't records in this thread. Am still none the wiser, but my ears had a good time!

I'm still in the same place I guess, that the stuff that didn't garner mainstream sales in the late 60s early 70s is the more classed as the 'soul' end of the spectrum.

When I made this thread I'd been listening to a lot of old Blackpool Mecca playlists, a lot of what I considered really great 'Disco', I'd be very interested to see some Studio 54 playlists just to see what, if any, of the early plays fitted in the reverse way, anyone know of any Northern allniter plays that were popular at 54 or was it likely to be the new releases from people like Nile Rodgers and Donna Summer? Obviously they were a huge part of it, that goes without saying. 

As an aside I believe Les Cokell DJed at the Mecca (as a guest spot I presume given it would be long after he ceased to be a resident) as in a Yellow Hard Hat, Tool Belt, Work Boots and a Boystown T-Shirt as a joke the night - LONG before my time, but we have the photo somewhere.

Dx

Edited January 14, 20196 yr by DaveNPete

55 minutes ago, DaveNPete said:

As an aside I believe Les Cokell DJed at the Mecca (as a guest spot I presume given it would be long after he ceased to be a resident) as in a Yellow Hard Hat, Tool Belt, Work Boots and a Boystown T-Shirt as a joke the night - LONG before my time, but we have the photo somewhere.

Dx

Great fun, before my time but my lass knew of him, she attended The Highland room many times, a real character by all accounts!

I don't really feel qualified to air my opinion on the key question of this thread but I was talking to someone about this the other day and there's definitely a generational thing about disco. I remember it as the music my mate's (rather trendy) mom was into - she was always going out to discos and I remember her playing Disco Inferno (it was actually played at her funeral a couple of years ago 😧) and others around the mid to late 70's. To us that meant it was desperately uncool in a similar vein to another mate's Dad's Jethro Tull, then there was the whole punk rejection of disco all of which meant I've never really been able to open my mind to it. My Nephews and younger people have none of this baggage though and some are well into it. 

Just now, Timillustrator said:

I don't really feel qualified to air my opinion on the key question of this thread but I was talking to someone about this the other day and there's definitely a generational thing about disco. I remember it as the music my mate's (rather trendy) mom was into - she was always going out to discos and I remember her playing Disco Inferno (it was actually played at her funeral a couple of years ago 😧) and others around the mid to late 70's. To us that meant it was desperately uncool in a similar vein to another mate's Dad's Jethro Tull, then there was the whole punk rejection of disco all of which meant I've never really been able to open my mind to it. My Nephews and younger people have none of this baggage though and some are well into it. 

Indeed Tim, nowadays it's considered cool to have a good knowledge of the music your parents are into, times change eh? 

19 minutes ago, BabyBoyAndMyLass said:

Indeed Tim, nowadays it's considered cool to have a good knowledge of the music your parents are into, times change eh? 

Too true, at the last Birmingham Town Hall Soul night there was a bloke (50's) and his son (20's) both dancing to loads of stuff I chatted to and that's not an uncommon sight. 

Same up here in the north - I was out at a local soul night at the weekend & one of my friends  was out on the floor, along with her extremely trendy young, mod granddaughter & her boyfriend - age gap of over 50 years. Granddaughter has grown up listening to Grandma's records & loves it - great to see! 

15 hours ago, BabyBoyAndMyLass said:

Just spent an hour re-listening to all't records in this thread. Am still none the wiser, but my ears had a good time!

I'm still in the same place I guess, that the stuff that didn't garner mainstream sales in the late 60s early 70s is the more classed as the 'soul' end of the spectrum.

When I made this thread I'd been listening to a lot of old Blackpool Mecca playlists, a lot of what I considered really great 'Disco', I'd be very interested to see some Studio 54 playlists just to see what, if any, of the early plays fitted in the reverse way, anyone know of any Northern allniter plays that were popular at 54 or was it likely to be the new releases from people like Nile Rodgers and Donna Summer? Obviously they were a huge part of it, that goes without saying. 

I wouldn't have thought there was much overlap between Blackpool Mecca and Studio 54. 

The blurred line is an interesting issue ,but it's never going to be easy to get any collective agreement on it. Like Art and Literature , Music has always had an element of tribal or intellectual snobbery attached to it that stands in the way of getting to the nitty gritty of the issue. Therefore discussing Northern Soul and Disco Music equates to a couple of disparate art lovers trying to reconcile their views on Cubism v Abstract painting. Personally, my view is that NS and disco diverge on a  multi criteria basis, but this is typically summarised and results in a qualitatively different sound (feel). Like most generalisations there are always going to be examples that seem to defy the description because they appear to fit into either camp, but as the saying goes an exception does not disprove the general rule, in this case a different sound from a different time. Within that general rule it's also quite clear that the time of issue is also to be included as a recommendation for deciding where a particular track fits within the two genres, but again that's just one criteria and is not definitive in and of itself without considering other criteria. On a personal level whilst I might struggle to categorise the odd track I don't have any difficulty usually in deciding what is NS and what is disco, they sound different and when you pick that apart you usually find different instrumentation, arrangement and date of issue.

On 13/10/2018 at 01:55, BabyBoyAndMyLass said:

 

Massive Disco hit!

 

Not a disco record to me! Early 70's soul record, that can be danced to in a disco!

Edited January 15, 20196 yr by Guest

1 hour ago, solidsoul said:

Not a disco record to me! Early 70's soul record, that can be danced to in a disco!

So what exactly do you think they played in New York discos in the early 70s (bearing in mind The Loft opened in 1969).
Dx

43 minutes ago, DaveNPete said:

So what exactly do you think they played in New York discos in the early 70s (bearing in mind The Loft opened in 1969).
Dx

They played 70's soul and dancable pop in those early disco's.  

Disco only started with the likes of Donna Summer "I Feel Love"  and then rubbish like Sylvester " You Make Me Feel Mighty Real" and awful things like "Born To Be Alive" Patrick Hernandez.

This  terrible disco stuff just about finished the making of great mainstream soul music in the USA!

Edited January 15, 20196 yr by Guest

2 hours ago, solidsoul said:

Not a disco record to me! Early 70's soul record, that can be danced to in a disco!

Deffo not disco. Brilliant 'danceable ' soul ' record.

Not even a good example of a record that crosses over imo.

Crossover disco.....northern

Later on

 

 

Ed

Edited January 15, 20196 yr by tomangoes
Spello

1 hour ago, solidsoul said:

They played 70's soul and dancable pop in those early disco's.  

Disco only started with the likes of Donna Summer "I Feel Love"  and then rubbish like Sylvester " You Make Me Feel Mighty Real" and awful things like "Born To Be Alive" Patrick Hernandez.

This  terrible disco stuff just about finished the making of great mainstream soul music in the USA!

I Feel love and Born To Be Alive are not American records, Donna Summer and Sylvester were groundbreaking records and both have to be in the top ten greatest ever disco records

Donna Summer RIP. Great disco tune.

Ed

 

 

"Disco" here in Spain (and also on the US and UK) is a pejorative word and at the same time an "umbrella" where general public put "all the black music from the 70's to the end of the 80's that is not Aretha, James Brown or Jazz or Blues or Reagge" (!!!???). Of course, when some one says "Ship Ahoy" and "War Of The Gods" albums (by The O'Jays and by Billy Paul respectively), one of my two first album purchases from my teens "is disco", I'm feel very hungry. They said "When Otis Redding dies, Soul music dies and Gamble & Huff and Barry White were the responsibles for reinvented black music as disco music" (!!!) or "Philly Sound was the birth of disco music" (!!!???). Gamble & Huff previous PIR stuff on their own labels and on free lance capacities (Jerry Butler, Sweet Inspirations, Soul Survivors,…), can be considered "disco" or "pro to-disco"..??!! I only can see a "continuum" between 60's Stax - Atlantic stuff and Gamble - Neptune - first PIR references stuff… Perhaps "I Love Music" (1975) can be considered the first "disco-soul" song by G & H (!!??).

I can't see any element of "disco" on Ship Ahoy or War Of The Gods (I can see gospel, jazzy and bluesy elements, soul, symphonic soul, jazz-soul, but… "disco"…?!

Some authors says "disco" started with eddie Kendrick's "Keep On Truckin'", continued with Manu Dibango's "Soul Makossa" and culminated with Van McCoy's "The Hustle"...

I only can see , IMHO, good or bad music and good music with interesting lyrics, social comment that can be also danceable (or not), this is the case of many soul uptempo numbers you can hear and / or dance to.

26 minutes ago, josep manuel concernau robles said:

 Perhaps "I Love Music" (1975) can be considered the first "disco-soul" song by G & H (!!??).

I would go further back - 

 

What about this - Wasn't this played

at the Casino?

 

Edited January 15, 20196 yr by the yank

Here in Spain the first time that appears the word "disco" in the 45's sleeves was in RCA - Victor / Cat / President stuff. There was a head with afro hair by a black man and the slogan "DISCO EXPLOSION" on 45's by George McCrae, Little Beaver, Betty Wright, The Tymes (!!!???). Little after this was generalized with other stuff, i.e., The Sylvers, The Reflections or The Crusaders (I have the 45 "Stomp Buck & Dance" and the 2 x LP where belongs,  "Southern Comfort" with the tag "Especial Discotecas"!!). Never see a PIR, Motown, Atlantic, Atco or Stax with any "disco" reference. Only in the liner notes of back cover of the PIR / Golden Fleece album "The Trammps" says that they are "the number one disco group".

After, when Atlantic and PIR among other labels started publishing 12"'s, they wrote "Special disco version" on the labels and sleeves (that means the original version is NOT "disco", i.e., "Set Me Free" by Teddy Pendergrass is an uptempo soul number but was re-edited on Maxi single as "Especial disco version")

in terms of disco tracks, that have that extra something (musicality or whatever), this is a nice track and I'd love to hear it played out somewhere

 

46 minutes ago, josep manuel concernau robles said:

Here in Spain the first time that appears the word "disco" in the 45's sleeves was in RCA - Victor / Cat / President stuff. There was a head with afro hair by a black man and the slogan "DISCO EXPLOSION" on 45's by George McCrae, Little Beaver, Betty Wright, The Tymes (!!!???). 

    The Tymes was definitely a Disco record. Here's a Top 10 list from 

    Billboard from November 2,  1974- 

                       

Edited January 15, 20196 yr by the yank

Simplistic I know, but I think of Northern Soul as a Tamla Motown / Funk Brothers based rhythm, and what we now call Modern Soul based on the B-H-Y and MFSB rhythm section at Philadelphia International Records. Just my individual opinion 😉

Some brilliant responses, thankyou, some great records too, I do like it a lot! 

For sure it was gonna be a subjective, personal view, that's what I was after, obviously it's a very 'Blurred line' that exists for different people in different places, this one was in many sales boxes over the decades, I have one, also have heard it as a play at events.

Soul, disco, funk instrumental, wicked record! 

 

More blurriness - 

 

8 minutes ago, the yank said:

More blurriness - 

If you don't like 'Young hearts run free' then...

Embrace it all, there's far too many contradictions if you don't, a certain ms Crawford raved about this before covering it for the masses. Like Marley said "when music hits you, you feel no pain". 

 

8 hours ago, chas said:

Embrace it all, there's far too many contradictions if you don't, a certain ms Crawford raved about this before covering it for the masses. Like Marley said "when music hits you, you feel no pain". 

 

I didn't know she covered it. Interesting - thanks for putting it up. Her version is much better though.

On 15/01/2019 at 18:44, the yank said:

What about this - Wasn't this played

at the Casino?

 

And At the Gleggy All Niters as a New Release off The Album "Danger High Voltage" (1974), The Single when released Later excluded that wonderful bit at the beginning of the Song,    MMMMMMMM Let's Go!

14 hours ago, BabyBoyAndMyLass said:

Some brilliant responses, thankyou, some great records too, I do like it a lot! 

For sure it was gonna be a subjective, personal view, that's what I was after, obviously it's a very 'Blurred line' that exists for different people in different places, this one was in many sales boxes over the decades, I have one, also have heard it as a play at events.

Soul, disco, funk instrumental, wicked record! 

 

I apreciate a lot this record. Firsty I have had in a ABC records compilation by various artists and after I purchased the "Discos Connection" by Isaac Hayes Movement album (ABC / Hot Buttered Soul,1976, the label where Isaac Hayes produced a very good album by The Masqueraders, "Everybody Wanna Live On"!)

IMHO, some of the best Isaac Hayes instrumentals appears on "Disco Connection" album, some mellow ones as After Five or Aruba . I have seen two different album art covers, one is a man and a woman dancing embraced and the one I have that is a rail road with a clock (one of my, as graphic designer, favorites!)

On ‎21‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 20:43, DaveNPete said:

Bobby: Modern Soul - Vicki Sue: Disco - Both brilliant, but Vicki Sue Robinson defo the more 'Northern' and the more played - a favourite at the Whitney-Carnes:
 

 

 

Sorry mate, but in my mind Vicki Sue R track isn't Northern on any criteria that I use to define same. I'd accept that the real argument is exactly what are the criteria that collectively we'd use, but on mine 'it's a no from me and no from him' (apologies to Barker and Corbett)

It's very likely that folks drawn to the Northern Soul scene between 13 and 17 years old, whenever that was, would have liked the more 'easy to listen to ' variety, more than the hard core stuff.

Hence when this came out, for us ' youth's it was frenetic. On the other hand the old timers ( over 18 year old) would have probably balked at it and considered leaving the scene:)

 

It was THEE record for nappy nights along with reaching for the best at Baileys....up and down the country.

Different fashion, different dances, different sounds...

Great memories, and still Northern Soul for many, even if they never made it to the next stage and moved on to all nighters etc.

Ed

 

Another one for the list - 

 

In the same "spirit", not totally "pop", not totally "soul", not exactly "disco" as the one by Tavares, years before there was this bombastic track by previously reggae artist Jessie Green. Here in Spain the local music bands who played in neighborhood summer parties sung it in spanish or only instrumental and the reiterative chorus "wooo-o-oh":

 

Thanks for posting- never saw this video. This was a huge Disco hit in the U.S. and the 2nd commercially available 12" released. 

well I own this one, think this is great, by no means a traditional track, a jazzy dancer and I'm getting more into this stuff as time goes on xD

 

Nice to hear it being played  - brilliant record - as with so much god garage (got a stack of this stuff on dvds off Roger Williams a few years ago - top chap!) .

Dx

Edited January 17, 20196 yr by DaveNPete