There are people coming into the scene all the time. Here's a text message I was sent only today by a friend in her mid thirties. Its word for word as I received it. Apart from ive re-written it from text talk.
"Morning! Just have to share with you the fun I had on Saturday night. We found ourselves in the Wardrobe Leeds watching the Spanish Harlems amazing live northern soul with guest DJ Snowboy."
My reply - "I heard he was playing, did you dance?"
Friends reply -" errr yeah, badly! I have never seen proper northern soul dancing. Incredible!."
So I'm burning some vinyl to Mp3 for her to dance in the house to.
And I'm certain shell be at a northern do before too long.
I was on the decks at There Was A Time at Kennedy's in York last Friday and there was a mixed age audience of soulies and others who had just dropped in to see what was going on. The atmosphere was cracking and the dance floor was lively all night. Even 'non soulies' were keeping the floor moving. All the DJs kept the tempo high and mixed in original classics with rarer stuff. At the end of the day it was music that made you want to dance. No matter if you'd never heard the tune before.
There's life in the old dog yet.