Paul-s

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_-9xF3DXbY/ Remember, place the weight, never straighten legs, and and and and.........😜 You can also learn burlesque, salsa, boogaloo, in fact anything you can think of! It's all covered...

1. Emmitt Long - Call Me 2. John Harris and the Soul Sayers - Hangin' In 3. Five Chances - I'm Gonna Miss You 4. Domestic Five - It's An Empty World 5. Delon Washington - Getting Mighty Close 6. Ray & The Belaires - The Blame Is On You 7. Apaches - Trying to Make Ends Meet 8. Sons of Nature - Disillusion City-Town 9. Eugene Gaspard - Holding On 10. Gamith - Darkness In Reserve Dorondo Pulliam - How I Got Over

Thanks for posting, really enjoyed reading it.

Got my copy and very enjoyable. It is another personal account and it is good that it doesn't paint the usual confused and reimagined 'rose tinted' experience and scene. In terms of DIMS comment: It will have broad appeal. But, it would have been good to see Stephen (who is an academic, Dr) unpick some of the accounts that have gone before and which he deems as not telling the truth in more detail (which takes time and patience). It's very easy to criticise something, say something is inaccurate or not the truth, but to take it into the level of an educational tool it's not enough just to just do that and you must critique it. You then need to show and reveal why those previous accounts are biased or inaccurate in at least some detail. Thats why it remains as a personal account and readers are left to compare it themselves to the other books that provide solely personal accounts, or to their own experiences. It would have been good to see a bibliography to confirm which books/accounts Stephen has read and was referring to. The discography, as any discography, provides a personal account and is useful. I am not a fan of Wikipedia references as they are not a source of accuracy and open to anyone applying their opinion or edit, be it true or false. Saying that, I enjoyed Stephens book and it resonated with many aspects of my own experience and it does indeed provide an alternative view to the bulk of, often lazily written and inaccurate, accounts that pop up seemingly every other week: often partisan and rambling. The word 'Truth' in the title and declarations in the book is obviously a dubious one as 'truth' is a very slippery, subjective and problematic word to apply to any account of events, so I take it with a pinch of salt, as it should be taken. A recommended read for sure.

This book sounds interesting and researched so I'm looking forward to reading it. I think (like Dim) it is ok to critique some of the plethora of self published memoirs on Northern Soul that are claiming the history of the scene merely through their own, sometimes venue limited, views. This one (below) for instance actually puts me off just by its historically flimsy claims in the promotional blurb.

My first venue too...great memories!

Thanks Paul. I sold it years ago for a couple of grand. I remember going to Australia to trade it with Callum Flack who was, apart from Jason P, the only person I knew had it at the time. Traded for Bernetia Miller.

It was me....

Great! I reckon 'McSoulies' might be the new term for this band of merry revellers..'Boffins of Ballyhoo', made me chuckle 😂

thanks! Great to see all these documents being posted and shared..

I think the whole topic of who is/was the best Northern Soul dancer is tenuous and packed full of totally subjective views based on multiple aspects of (non)involvement in the scene: venues, time scale, age, corporeal preferences, music preferences etc. Basically, it's a ridiculously repeated topic that ends up with lots of videos that have already been mediated because they are videos, and many are videos being re-mediated (via here) because they were initially TV programmes. People end up pushing and posting their own 'champs' with words like 'proper' or 'right' or 'best' to enamour a general consensus among the various factions that exist. It's as absurd as the 'World Northern Soul Dance Championship' which is a totally ridiculous event geared towards making a promoters venue seem more important than it is (you never see many internationally invited competitors, or it being held in other countries on rotational invite). It's as absurd as people advertising 'Northern Soul Dance Classes" when all they can genuinely claim is 'How I dance to Northern Soul Classes'. My point is, it's in the eye and soul of the beholder. One of the best dancers I ever saw was a guy called 'George' in Seattle; when I was with DDA DJing there. He got up in a 300 capacity venue, went to the centre of the floor (no one was dancing) closed his eyes, stood with his feet fixed and gave it his soulful all, long hair waving about, swaying and bending, totally lost in the music and totally expressing the soul of it... no blueprint for him and he didn't need or want one...he was just honest and in it. Pontificating on peoples dancing is a personal choice, but boy do these threads repeat the same old same old and often measure all dancing against a totally random and imagined template of what is 'proper'.

Just received news that 'The Northern Soul Scene' book has been nominated for the 2020 Association for Recorded Sounds Collection Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research. The winners will be announced in September.

Ah ok. Well, I know Tim and Nicola and Ady of course. I didn't know David, but he was a well respected Professor of popular music I think, and he has a really interesting bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sanjek Sadly he died unexpectedly of a heart attack. No idea who Lucy is.

Hey, I've fished all my life, but not at a soul events. But I do remember checking if anything had been caught at the back of one venue where there was gravel pits, maybe it was the Fleet, I can't quite remember ?

Bloody hell.....its as if I can imagine something, mention it, and it's already out there chugging along. 'Captain of My Ship' comes to mind. You can probably do a bit of fishing or crabbing as well I imagine.

Indeed. There is market for everything. Has there ever been a Northern Soul Cruise? If not, it will be coming soon I reckon...

Maybe it's a pool revivalist movement then..

Brilliantly put...... Not a funeral plan, but a planned funeral: https://en-gb.facebook.com/northernsoulfunerals/

It's possibly my age, but I wasn't aware of a Northern Soul Pool Party scene. But it's advertised here. I would be interested to hear what this is if anybody knows. Perhaps there are certain tracks that are played such as: Wade in the Water - Marlena Shaw C'mon on and Swim - Bobby Freeman Waterfall - Jimmy Cliff It Keeps Raining - Fats Domino Maybe there are certain DJ's like Russ Swimstanley? Who knows....who knows?

I have no idea about a lecture, but imagine that could be painful. There is no one author for the book. It has three co-editors but multiple contributors from different eras across the scene. You may have seen a lecture by one of the editors. I think the book is intended to address the Wigan-centric reflections that precede it, my chapter certainly is. Whether it succeeds or not is up to the readers I guess, but hopefully it starts the ball rolling. Sociologist and criminologists engage with it on many levels I think, drugs are an obvious one (but more retrospectively nowadays) but also cultural capital passed on through generations via records, knowledge and other things. I agree it's all a bit tame nowadays but perhaps the criminally soul-less events of some promoters would qualify or the development of criminally tasteless Northern Soul 'Pool Parties' which I just saw advertised. It's all getting very glitzy, so maybe 'luxury Northern Soul events' will be the next evolutionary stage.😉

It's encouraging to see the discussion on here and my respect to those taking the time to read and critique it. It was, I believe, compiled to present Northern Soul as a clear field of academic study, which it has now been for quite a while. Northern Soul exists on the popular dance dance syllabus at quite a few universities and is also of great interest to sociologists and criminologists at university/research level. Not surprising really, as much has happened over five decades and it is a very deep and nuanced scene that belies the narrow lens and approach that many commentators have applied to it to date. Within the scenes history (and future) there are multiple avenues of study that contain valuable insights into social, political, historical, musical, corporeal and cultural developments in the UK (and elsewhere). The book will hopefully start a conversation and invoke critique(s) and responses that allow the subject area to grow and, in doing so, articulate the importance of the contribution that Northern Soul has made to the sub-cultural and cultural landscape of the UK (and beyond).

'fandango' 😂 made me chuckle.....thanks...

You can in a 'live' situation I think. Harder on video and films, in these cases, the music is dubbed over afterwards and rarely are the dancers in synch with the music and it is often a different track, (or due to the edit a number of tracks) they were dancing too.