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“I’m Where It’s At”

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Authenticity and Belonging in the Northern Soul Scene

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Abstract

Having followed Nina and her instructions to the “proper nighter” in a narrative section that opens this chapter, we enter into a discussion of northern soul place and the transformation of venues through the organisation of space, specific sensory experiences, and historicising. Taking two different events, the ways in which venues and cities/towns have become central or removed from the narratives that dominate the scene become apparent. Finally, we find our way to the “proper nighter”, a place within which young men and women find increased freedom to experiment with the practices and musical boundaries of the scene. Emerging out of conversations about place, the issue of class sows the seed for the second half of the chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Football Club, December 2015.

  2. 2.

    Unlike the other events that are featured within this ethnographic study, this one will be only referred to as “The Football Club”. The organisers go to great lengths to promote the event through word-of-mouth, and as such it is one of the more hidden northern soul events. And so it shall remain.

  3. 3.

    See Doyle, “More than a dance hall, more a way of life”; Susan Nicholson, “From Detroit To Wigan- Style as a Refusal” in Fashion Capital: Style Economies, Sites and Cultures (Critical Issues), ed. Jess Berry (London: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2012).

  4. 4.

    David Sanjek, “Groove Me: Dancing to the Discs of Northern Soul,” in Transatlantic Roots Music: Folk, Blues and National Identities, ed. by Jill Terry and Neil Wynn, (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 229.

  5. 5.

    Wall, Out on the floor, 439.

  6. 6.

    Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1984; Hollows and Milestone, “Welcome To Dreamsville,” 88.

  7. 7.

    Milestone, “Love Factory,”; Doyle, “More than a dance hall, more a way of life,” 323; Sanjek, “Groove Me,” 236; Laura Robinson, “Keeping The Faith: Issues of Identity, Spectacle and Embodiment in Northern Soul,” in Bodies of Sound: Studies across Popular Music and Dance, ed. Susan C. Cook, and Sherril Dodds, 179–192. (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2013), 184.

  8. 8.

    Nicholson, “The Wigan Dandy,” 97.

  9. 9.

    This link between working-class identity in northern soul and masculinity has been most clearly made by Doyle, “More than a dance hall, more a way of life.”

  10. 10.

    Hollows and Milestone, “Welcome To Dreamsville”; Sanjek, “Groove Me”; Nicholson, “The Wigan Dandy”.

  11. 11.

    Wall, “‘Out on the floor’”; Andrew Wilson, Northern Soul.

  12. 12.

    This generational valuing of northern soul practices in relation to gender is the key focus of Chap. 8.

  13. 13.

    Edward Casey, “How to Get from Space to Place in a Fairly Short Stretch of Time,” in Senses of Place, eds. Steven Feld and Keith Basso (Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1996), 13–52.

  14. 14.

    Hollows and Milestone, “Welcome To Dreamsville.”

  15. 15.

    Contrast this with Malbon 1999, who emphasises that in a night’s clubbing successful entrance into the club is the first and essential indication of gaining entry and demonstrating membership through style, attitude, and/or connections, see Clubbing.

  16. 16.

    Casey, “How to Get from Space to Place in a Fairly Short Stretch of Time.”

  17. 17.

    Ibid.

  18. 18.

    Steven Feld, “Waterfalls of Song: An Acoustemology of Place Resounding in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea,” in Senses of Place, ed. Steven Feld and Keith Basso (Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1996), 91–135.

  19. 19.

    Ibid.

  20. 20.

    Ibid, 134.

  21. 21.

    Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, 174–5.

  22. 22.

    Jackson, Blowin’ the Blues Away, 68 (italics in original).

  23. 23.

    Feld, “Waterfalls of Song,” 93.

  24. 24.

    Tim Creswell, Place: A Short Introduction (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004), 37.

  25. 25.

    Tommy’s event was in July 2016; Bobby and Jacquie’s event in September 2016.

  26. 26.

    Casey, “How to Get from Space to Place in a Fairly Short Stretch of Time,” 45.

  27. 27.

    Although this event was organised by Bobby and Jacquie, the vast majority of those who offered a review to others off- or online assigned the event organiser role solely to Bobby. This gendering of northern soul roles, although rejected by Jacquie, is common within the scene and is considered in detail in Chap. 8.

  28. 28.

    This making meaning through the “connection of events, contexts, and procedures – musical and otherwise – to each other” is also been identified by Travis Jackson as central to how jazz performances are made meaningful, see Blowin’ the Blues Away, 211.

  29. 29.

    Creswell, Place: A short introduction, 27.

  30. 30.

    This is not isolated to northern soul participation. Sue Widdcombe and Rob Wooffitt identify this balance as central to participation in the British punk scene in “Being’ Versus ‘Doing’ Punk.”

  31. 31.

    Taken from an interview with Des, 25.

  32. 32.

    These are all words used by young men and women to describe the “proper nighter” to me.

  33. 33.

    Wilson, Northern Soul.; Doyle, “More than a dance hall, more a way of life.”

  34. 34.

    Milestone, “Love Factory,” especially 139; Sanjeck, “Groove Me,” 242.; and Kimansi Browne, “Soul Music: The ‘Interculturalarity’ of a Repository for the African Diaspora and Beyond” in Música. Arte. Diálogo. Civilización, edited by Maria Angustina Ortiz Molinos (Coimbra (Portugal): Center for Intercultural Music Arts, 2008), 143–165.

  35. 35.

    Dave Godin, “Land of a Thousand Dances,” Blues & Soul, Issue 50 (1971).

  36. 36.

    Godin, “Land of a Thousand Dances.” I explore this in greater length in Raine and Wall, ‘Participation and role in the northern soul scene’ and Raine and Wall, ‘Myths On/Of the Northern Soul Scene’.

  37. 37.

    Rob Shields, Places on the Margin (London: Routledge, 1991), 245.

  38. 38.

    Ibid, 245.

  39. 39.

    Dave Godin also described his later trip to the Blackpool Mecca in similar terms, once again emplacing the scene and its members within a specific geographical place and class-specific culture, see “The Dave Godin Column,” Blues & Soul, Issue 67 (1971).

  40. 40.

    Godin, “The Dave Godin Column.”

  41. 41.

    These attributes associated with working-class identity in Britain have also been set out by Nathan Wiseman-Trowse in his seminal book on class and music scenes, Performing Class in British Popular Music (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

  42. 42.

    Godin, “The Dave Godin Column.”

  43. 43.

    This discussion of books, films, and documentaries on northern soul and the scene use of these is distilled from a book chapter: Raine and Wall, “Myths On/Of the Northern Soul Scene.”

  44. 44.

    Nowell, Too darn soulful, especially 41–47; Mike Ritson and Stuart Russell, The In Crowd: The Story of the Northern & Rare Soul Scene (London: Bee Cool Publishing, 1999).

  45. 45.

    Examples of this working-class narrative can be found in fan publications including Cosgrove, Young Soul Rebel.; Nowell, Too Darn Soulful; Reg Stickings, Searching For Soul (London: SAF, 2008); Russ Winstanley and David Nowell, Soul Survivors: The Wigan Casino Story (London: Robson Books Ltd., 1996).

  46. 46.

    This an interview was undertaken and used by David Nowell to set the scene for a history of the Twisted Wheel in Manchester in Too Darn Soulful.

  47. 47.

    Such as Northern Soul and Soul Boy, and documentaries such as Northern Soul: Keeping the Faith a BBC Two (The Culture Show) documentary presented by Paul Mason (as argued in Raine and Wall 2017; and Raine and Wall, “Myths On/Of the Northern Soul Scene”).

  48. 48.

    Milestone, Love Factory, 143.

  49. 49.

    Cosgrove, Young Soul Rebel, 96.

  50. 50.

    Palmer, Tony. Wigan Casino. London: Granada TV, 1977.

  51. 51.

    Tim Wall “Interviews with Tony Palmer, Elaine Constantine, and Liam Quinn,” in The Northern Soul Scene, ed. Sarah Raine, Tim Wall and Nicola Watchman Smith (Sheffield: Equinox, 2019).

  52. 52.

    Constantine, Northern Soul. (Film).

  53. 53.

    Paul Mason is a northern, class-conscious journalist. It should also be noted that this documentary adds yet another male voice to the narrative of northern soul accessible to newcomers as they develop their understanding.

  54. 54.

    Matthew Worley also argues that these everyday experiences in Oi! lyrics also contribute to the creation of a shared working-class identity amongst scene members, see “Oi! Oi! Oi!: Class, Locality, and British Punk,” Twentieth Century British History 24, no. 4 (2013): 606–636. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwt001

  55. 55.

    R. Andrew Sayer, The Moral Significance of Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 181.

  56. 56.

    This definition of class as culturally situated is also evident in a recent public poll undertaken by The Independent on Sunday (March 2011), within which people defined their social class in mostly cultural terms, the majority (70%) describing themselves as middle-class.

  57. 57.

    Hollows and Milestone, “Welcome To Dreamsville,” 93.

  58. 58.

    Nicholson, “The Wigan Dandy,” 95–99.

  59. 59.

    Wall, “‘Out on the floor,’” 445.

  60. 60.

    Wall, “‘Out on the floor,’” 443. This central canon of northern soul records is discussed in Chap. 8 in relation to northern soul record collecting and DJ practices.

  61. 61.

    As argued by Joe Street, “Dave Godin and the Politics of the British Soul Community,” in The Northern Soul Scene, ed. Sarah Raine, Tim Wall, Nicola Watchman Smith (Sheffield: Equinox, 2019).

  62. 62.

    In their study of a northern soul community in Perth, Australia, Mercieca, Chapman, and O’Neill include the story of a highly politically-active individual who framed his experience of northern soul directly through his politics, see Paul Mercieca, Anne Chapman and Marnie H O’Neill, To the Ends of the Earth.

  63. 63.

    Wilson, Northern Soul, 44–45.

  64. 64.

    As with all movements of people and their engagement with transnational cultural activity, the impact of Brexit and, indeed, the Covid-19 pandemic on this part of northern soul experience for British soulies is yet to be seen.

  65. 65.

    The scene usage of these terms is discussed on page 14.

  66. 66.

    The Spanish scene primarily attracts men and women in their thirties and early forties, many of whom found the scene in their teens during the 90s through widely circulated zines. Like the scene in the UK, much of the Spanish soul community use Facebook to share scene-related information or news, but most of these forums are “closed”, frequented by a comparatively small number of regular attendees. The scarcity of younger members was attributed by Spanish soul fans to a lack of general awareness of music history amongst the Spanish youth, the “private” nature of scene-related Facebook activity, and the limited release of both Soul Boy and Northern Soul, with both films released on DVD only rather than being available at the cinemas. As I have discussed, the well-publicised release of the films in the UK offered young newcomers a means to discover and explore the northern soul scene.

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  1. Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, UK

    Sarah Raine

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Raine, S. (2020). “I’m Where It’s At”. In: Authenticity and Belonging in the Northern Soul Scene. Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41364-4_7

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