How Did You Get Into The Soul Scene?

[Guest WPaulVanDyk]

my dad was into the music for years and i got it from him. I used to like a bit of old stuff my first ever fav soul record if you class is soul was Jackie Wilson - Reet Pettie. But i had started to hear Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up first song i ever would recommend to anyone who wanted to know what Northern Soul was then away from commerical Motown and obvious charted soul tracks. But as i got older i started getting more and more into Northern and i even went along to a few local do's and well it's got to be an obsession now.

I am out to almost every one in Peterborough apart from DKOF. but other 4 main clubs i am there at them all.

[Russoul1]

my dad was into the music for years and i got it from him. I used to like a bit of old stuff my first ever fav soul record if you class is soul was Jackie Wilson - Reet Pettie. But i had started to hear Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up first song i ever would recommend to anyone who wanted to know what Northern Soul was then away from commerical Motown and obvious charted soul tracks. But as i got older i started getting more and more into Northern and i even went along to a few local do's and well it's got to be an obsession now.

I am out to almost every one in Peterborough apart from DKOF. but other 4 main clubs i am there at them all.

so why dont you do DKOF matt if soul is a obsession to you?, if you keep it openminded you might enjoy it and gain abit more knowledge regards whats out there

russ

[Guest WPaulVanDyk]

i haven't been since it moved into Peterborough, i never went seeing as don't drive and couldn't get to where it was based before

i am jobless now (long story) so have to go out less

[Guest]

hearing Tony Blackburn play 6 by 6 on radio one started it for me

[Prophonics 2029]

It was at school,these kids in my year use to bring records in to play at break time and they looked so strange compared to the UK singles I had had and seen around unlike my collection of Ken Dodd, Peter Sellers, The Bachelors, The Honeycones and The Ponytails I think I had a sheltered up brining until I found Northern.

The case is more that these records were the pits so I got them as hand-me-downs to play @ 78 they did sound better.

[Guest ScooterNik]

1979 like so many others I got caught along in the mod revival. From bands like Secret Affair and The Chords it was a small step to The Who, The Small Faces and still probably my favourite 60's pop band, Manfred Mann. I remember picking up a compilation (on Mercury I think) called 'Allnighters' which had one side of the british R&B bands, and the other of US R&B/Soul artists. I sold the album years ago (and have been looking for a copy ever since) but it was the Amercan side that I kept going back to. I'm pretty sure Mitch Ryder was on it, and The Shangri-Las '(Remember) Walking In The Sand' and that opened up a whole new music to me.

By this time also, the Wrexham mod scene had moved on to Motown and Atlantic, so that was added to the mix, I remember discovering the Stax reissues in around 82 and adding those to my list, along with finding compilations that included originals of tracks the UK bands had done in the 60s. I remember a friend who had scooter around that time (must have been early 83?) coming out of the local record shop with an album called 'Out On The Floor' on Inferno. One listen and I had to have a copy. Then the Kent albums started appearing and that was it, I wanted more.

In spring 84 my family moved to Clitheroe, I hooked up with a lad called Graham Jones who took me to a couple of Northern Soul nights at Burnley Bankhall Miners, then we started doing Morecambe, I remember one scary night going up through a contraflow on the M6 in a mate of Grahams 3.3 Capri. In the fog. With his foot to the floor. I thought I was going to die..... We went on the bus after that.

I got more into the scene and started going further afield sometims on my own, sometimes with people I'd met- Bradford (where I saw the funniest case of paranoia I've ever seen, a story for another time), think we went a couple of times to a nighter in or around Leeds, took us an hour to Leeds then three to find the bloody venue, Stafford on a fairly regular basis, alwnys ended up trying to kip on the station knowing it would be four hours before you stood a chance of eating or sleepiug, a Soul Promotions nighter in (I think) Llandudno where I got ripped off on some crushed asprin... Good times.

Records became an obsession, spending more than I could afford, as you do.

All this time I was still involved (and still am) with scooters and slowly drifted away from the 'proper' northern soul scene. Ironically I started DJing scooter do's because I was spending most weekends at nighters not rallies, and so was buying stuff that people at rallies knew, but that weren't available on compilation albums. Then as the DJing took off I was doing more rallies than nighters, so my buying fell and I never got back into it again. The interest in the music never died, and never will, but these days I'd rather spend £50 and come home with 5 or 6 cds than a reasonably good single, but my collection from the early days stays mine.....