Northern Soul at the Proms

Fifty years ago this week I started work as a journalist on the Wigan Evening Post and Chronicle, the local evening newspaper in this northern town best known from George Orwell's 'The Road To Wigan Pier' as a classic example of working class poverty before World War 2. Unbeknown to me at the time, the town was playing host to a new music development - Northern Soul, which featured weekly all-nighters at the Casino Club in the town centre. Northern Soul quickly became a cult and its devotees went to great lengths to find obscure records, mostly recorded in the US in cities such as Detroit, which had been overlooked at their time of release, but had a certain danceable beat and style.It is still popular today and I've very much enjoyed the live acts that have appeared at the annual Blackpool Soul festival over the last few years, including Little Anthony, the Impressions, Eddie Holman, Brenda Holloway and Nolan Porter. This year, sadly, there are no live acts as the festival, which takes place later this month, is a celebration of 50 years of the Wigan Casino - and that was exclusively records, rather than live acts.

To mark this 50th anniversary the Proms at London's Royal Albert Hall featured an evening of Northern Soul, which was shown on BBC TV this weekend. Introduced by broadcaster Andi Oliver and including singer P P Arnold and producer Clarke Peters, the show was hosted by Stuart Maconie, who was a 12 year old living in Wigan at the time. Six artists sang a selection of Northern Soul favourites backed by the BBC Concert Orchestra. These included tracks originally recorded by Dobie Gray ('Out On The Floor'), Tony Clarke ('Landslide'), Ray Pollard ('The Drifter'), Gladys Knight ('No One Could Love You More'), Little Anthony and the Imperials ('Better Use Your Head') and R Dean Taylor ('There's A Ghost In My House'). Stuart Maconie came on stage to introduce the 'three before eight' - the records that were played just before the all-nighters finished at 8am. These were 'I'm On My Way by Dean Parrish, 'Time Will Pass You By' by Tobi Legend and 'Long After Tonight Is All Over' by Jimmy Radcliffe. The final songs of the Proms concert were Gloria Jones's 'Tainted Love' and Frank Wilson's 'Do I Love You'.

Six years ago the Proms deviated from its usual diet of classical music with a soul night to mark the 50th anniverary of the Stax/Volt tour of 1967, which I witnessed in all its splendour at the Fairfield Hall in Croydon. That show featured Booker T Jones and Steve Cropper among others with Jools Holland and was very enjoyable on the whole. The Northern Soul event was less successful I thought as there were no well known singers taking part. That's hardly surprising, as most of the biggest Northern Soul records were by artists who were hardly known, even at the time. And of course the whole Northern Soul scene is all about the records really. It's just live music fans like me who want, and expect, original live acts at Northern Soul shows. The BBC Concert Orchestra did its professional best to provide support for the artists doing cover versions of the original records, but I felt that the show lacked real 'soul'. Maybe that's just me and I have to admit it was a brave idea which seemed to be appreciated by the audience. But when all is said and done it was just a night of cover versions. Let's hope there are 'live' acts at Blackpool next year.