Just An Observation

[Guest realsoulfan]

Whilst looking on another soul music forum i read an interesting thread which got me really thinking,

Why so few black Djs on the UK Soul circuit??

[Billy Freemantle]

Perhaps because most black people in the UK are of West Indian extraction. In other words, they have reggae roots and leanings. It's probably the same with clubs. There were non-white faces at the Twisted Wheel but not that many. I think the same was true of the Torch and the Mecca. I've no idea about Wigan Casino. I believe the Catacombs was well attended by black folk, but that's only on hearsay. I think you only have to look at the photos of current rare soul events to see that this particular vice in the UK is a mainly white scene.

[Guest]

Perhaps because most black people in the UK are of West Indian extraction. In other words, they have reggae roots and leanings. It's probably the same with clubs. There were non-white faces at the Twisted Wheel but not that many. I think the same was true of the Torch and the Mecca. I've no idea about Wigan Casino. I believe the Catacombs was well attended by black folk, but that's only on hearsay. I think you only have to look at the photos of current rare soul events to see that this particular vice in the UK is a mainly white scene.

Guildhall Stockport has a good mixed mixed membership but in the main tend to get down in the first room where you could get anything from a blues R&B,reggae to stylistics E,W Fire,kool&gang etc, Go into the back northern room and for the most part its the cocasions in there and on the floor?

ive often wondered about this one?

At most northern nights up and down theres not much of a following of the music by them at all?

[Gene-r]

When I went to the Winter Gardens, Cleethorpes, in 1983, there were a lot of black West Indians in atendance mainly, I think, because it was a modern soul night.

It was also the only niter I went to where you could see dancers trying out their back-spinning!! Would I lie to you..........?

But I digress. To answer the original question, I think it's more a case of very few West Indians having an interest in 60s soul, particulatly fast and stomping soul. Interest seems to lie in the two-stepper soul/funk records more than anything else. I can't answer for the modern soul scene though; things may be different there.

Edited February 17, 2006 by Gene-R