183-900: Northern soul is a music and dance movement that emerged in Northern England and the Midlands in the early 1970s. It developed from the British mod scene, based on a particular style of Black American soul music with a heavy beat and fast tempo (100 bpm and above). The Northern soul movement generally eschews Motown or Motown-influenced music that has had significant mainstream commercial success. The recordings most prized by enthusiasts are by lesser-known artists, " rare grooves " released in limited numbers on labels such as VeeJay , Chess , Brunswick , Ric-Tic , Gordy Records , Golden World Records (Detroit), Mirwood Records (Los Angeles), Shout Records and Okeh . Northern soul
366-658: A 45 on Soul City, the track peaked at UK No. 41 in August 1968, becoming the first Northern soul-derived chart hit. A few months later, in January 1969, Jamo Thomas ' 1966 single "I Spy (For the FBI)" was similarly licensed and reissued, hitting UK No. 44. The trend continued into the 1970s, as songs from the 1960s that were revived on the Northern soul scene were reissued by their original labels and became UK top 40 hits. These include
549-624: A Celtic culture, and had its own Celtic language, Cumbric , spoken predominately in Cumbria until around the 12th century. Parts of the north and east of England were subject to Danish control (the Danelaw ) during the Viking Age , but the northern part of the old Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria remained under Anglo-Saxon control. Under the Vikings, monasteries were largely wiped out, and
732-787: A Knave (1968). There are no recognised minority languages in Northern England, although the Northumbrian Language Society campaigns to have the Northumbrian dialect recognised as a separate language. It is possible that traces of now-extinct Brythonic Celtic languages from the region survive in some rural areas in the Yan Tan Tethera counting systems traditionally used by shepherds. Contact between English and immigrant languages has given rise to new accents and dialects. For instance,
915-754: A Northern dialect area, some correspond the area north of a line that begins at the Humber estuary and runs up the River Wharfe and across to the River Lune in north Lancashire. This area corresponds roughly to the sprachraum of the Old English Northumbrian dialect , although the linguistic elements that defined this area in the past, such as the use of doon instead of down and substitution of an ang sound in words that end - ong ( lang instead of long ), are now prevalent only in
1098-636: A UK or Irish identity. 90.5% of the population described themselves as white, compared to an England and Wales average of 85.9%; other ethnicities represented include Pakistani (2.9%), Indian (1.3%), Black (1.3%), Chinese (0.6%) and Bangladeshi (0.5%). The broad averages hide significant variation within the region: Allerdale and Redcar and Cleveland had a greater percentage of the population identifying as White British (97.6% each) than any other district in England and Wales, while Manchester (66.5%), Bradford (67.4%) and Blackburn with Darwen (69.1%) had among
1281-401: A checkered shirt. Reading from a prepared text, Kerouac reflected on his beat beginnings: It is because I am Beat, that is, I believe in beatitude and that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son to it ... Who knows, but that the universe is not one vast sea of compassion actually, the veritable holy honey, beneath all this show of personality and cruelty? Kerouac's statement
1464-591: A distinctive coarse-grained rock used to make millstones , is widespread in the Pennines, and the variety of other rock types is reflected in the architecture of the region, such as the bright red sandstone seen in buildings in Chester , the cream-buff Yorkstone and the distinctive purple Doddington sandstone. These sandstones also mean that apart from the east coast, most of Northern England has very soft water , and this has influenced not just industry, but even
1647-587: A key element in the art of beats, whether it was the Theatrical Event of 1952 at Black Mountain College or Jack Kerouac typing in 1951 the novel On the Road on a typewriter in a single session on a single roll of 31-meter long paper. Representatives of the movement were united by hostility to traditional culture with its conformism and brightly degenerate commercial component. They also did not like
1830-514: A lineage of female realist writers from the North that later included Winifred Holtby , Catherine Cookson , Beryl Bainbridge and Jeanette Winterson . Many of the angry young men of post-war literature were Northern, and working-class life in the face of deindustrialisation is depicted in novels such as Room at the Top (1959), Billy Liar (1959), This Sporting Life (1960) and A Kestrel for
2013-574: A major target for Luftwaffe attacks during the Second World War . The Blitz of 1940–1941 saw major raids on Barrow-in-Furness , Hull , Leeds , Manchester , Merseyside , Newcastle and Sheffield with thousands killed and significant damage done. Liverpool, a vital port for supplies from North America, was especially hard hit – the city was the most bombed in the UK outside London and Hull, with around 4,000 deaths across Merseyside and most of
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#17327647372012196-402: A mixture of elements of pop art and mysticism. Among other artists and works, one can single out the work The Rose by the artist Jay DeFeo , the work on which was carried out for seven years, a huge painting-assembly weighing about a ton with a width of up to 20 centimeters. Alan Bisbort's survey Beatniks: A Guide to an American Subculture was published by Greenwood Press in 2009 as part of
2379-884: A more modern occupation known as the Creswellian culture around 12,000 years ago. Kirkwell Cave in Lower Allithwaite , Cumbria shows signs of the Federmesser culture of the Paleolithic , and was inhabited some time between 13,400 and 12,800 years ago. Significant settlement appears to have begun in the Mesolithic era, with Star Carr in North Yorkshire generally considered the most significant monument of this era. The Star Carr site includes Britain's oldest known house, from around 9000 BC, and
2562-528: A much larger capacity than many competing venues and ran its events from 2 am until 8 am. There was a regular roster of DJs, including Russ Winstanley, Kev Roberts and Richard Searling. By 1976, the club had a membership of 100,000 people, and in 1978, it was voted the world's number-one discotheque by Billboard . This was during the heyday of the Studio 54 nightclub in New York City . By
2745-474: A quotation here and a photograph there—and it was their job to wrap it up in a comprehensible package—and if it seemed to violate the prevailing mandatory conformist doctrine, they would also be obliged to give it a negative spin as well. And in this, they were aided and abetted by the Poetic Establishment of the day. Thus, what came out in the media: from newspapers, magazines, TV, and the movies,
2928-492: A rebellion against the middle-class culture of beauty salons. Marijuana use was associated with the subculture, and during the 1950s, Aldous Huxley 's The Doors of Perception further influenced views on drugs. By 1960, a small "beatnik" group in Newquay , Cornwall, England (including a young Wizz Jones ) had attracted the attention and abhorrence of their neighbours for growing their hair beyond shoulder length, resulting in
3111-444: A result, Wigan Casino DJs resorted to playing any kind of record that matched the correct tempo. Also, the club was subjected to intense media coverage and began to attract many otherwise uninterested people of whom the soul purists did not approve. The Northern soul movement between Wigan Casino's fans and Blackpool Mecca's wider approach accepted the more contemporary sounds of Philly soul , early disco and funk. Ian Levine broke from
3294-926: A significant impact on American culture and society as they challenged the norms and values of their time. They influenced many aspects of art, literature, music, film, fashion, and language. They also inspired many social movements and subcultures that followed them, such as the hippies , the counterculture , the New Left , the environmental movement , and the LGBT movement . Some of the more notable figures who were influenced by or associated with beatniks include Bob Dylan , The Beatles , Andy Warhol , Ken Kesey , and Timothy Leary . Beatniks have been portrayed or parodied in many works of fiction, such as The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis , A Charlie Brown Christmas , The Munsters , The Flintstones , The Simpsons , and SpongeBob SquarePants . In 1948, Jack Kerouac introduced
3477-438: A specific purpose or program ... It was many different, conflicting, shifting states of mind. Since 1958, the terms Beat Generation and Beat have been used to describe the antimaterialistic literary movement that began with Kerouac in the 1940s and continued into the 1960s. The Beat philosophy of antimaterialism and soul searching influenced 1960s musicians such as Bob Dylan , the early Pink Floyd and The Beatles . However,
3660-762: A spiritual path in their quests to provide answers to universal questions and concepts. As a result, the Beat philosophy stressed the bettering of the inner self and the rejection of materialism , and postulated that East Asian religions could fill a religious and spiritual void in the lives of many Americans. Many scholars speculate that Beat writers wrote about Eastern religions to encourage young people to practice spiritual and sociopolitical action. Progressive concepts from these religions, particularly those regarding personal freedom, influenced youth culture to challenge capitalist domination, break their generation's dogmas, and reject traditional gender and racial rules. Beatnik art
3843-457: A stereotype found in cartoon drawings and (in some cases at worst) twisted, sometimes violent media characters. In 1995, film scholar Ray Carney wrote about the authentic beat attitude as differentiated from stereotypical media portrayals of the beatnik: Much of Beat culture represented a negative stance rather than a positive one. It was animated more by a vague feeling of cultural and emotional displacement, dissatisfaction, and yearning, than by
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#17327647372014026-479: A television interview with Alan Whicker on BBC television's Tonight series. The Beat philosophy was generally countercultural and antimaterialistic, and stressed the importance of bettering one's inner self over material possessions. Some Beat writers, such as Gary Snyder , began to delve into Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Taoism . Politics tended to be liberal , left-wing and anti-war, with support for causes such as desegregation (although many of
4209-605: Is a grouping of three statistical regions : the North East , the North West , and Yorkshire and the Humber . These had a combined population of 15.5 million at the 2021 census , an area of 37,331 km (14,414 square miles) and 17 cities . Northern England is culturally and economically distinct from both the Midlands and Southern England . The area's northern boundary is the border with Scotland , its western
4392-609: Is an increase from the 14,933,000 (and 6,364,000 households) counted in the 2011 census, and itself a growth of 5.1% from 2001. This means that Northerners comprise 28% of the English population and 24% of the UK population. Taken overall, 8% of the population of Northern England were born overseas (3% from the European Union including Ireland and 5% from elsewhere), substantially less than the England and Wales average of 13%, and 5% define their nationality as something other than
4575-676: Is associated with dance styles and fashions that grew out of the underground rhythm and soul scene of the late 1960s at venues such as the Twisted Wheel in Manchester . This scene and the associated dances and fashions quickly spread to other dancehalls and nightclubs like the Wigan Casino , Blackpool Mecca (the Highland Room), and Golden Torch ( Stoke-on-Trent ). As the favoured beat became more uptempo and frantic in
4758-587: Is claimed that Caen coined the term by adding the Yiddish suffix -nik to Beat as in the Beat Generation. Nik, a suffix was also due to Sputnik craze, the first satellite orbiting the planet and fired up in 1957. Became used in many colloquial synthetics, as in Nogoodnik, etc. However, an earlier source from 1954, or possibly 1957 after the launch of Sputnik , is ascribed to Ethel (Etya) Gechtoff,
4941-601: Is reflected in its literature. On the one hand, the wild moors and lakes have inspired generations of Romantic authors: the poetry of William Wordsworth and the novels of the Brontë sisters are perhaps the most famous examples of writing inspired by these elemental forces. Classics of children's literature such as The Railway Children (1906), The Secret Garden (1911) and Swallows and Amazons (1930) portray these largely untouched landscapes as worlds of adventure and transformation where their protagonists can break free of
5124-524: Is the direction of contemporary art that originated in the United States as part of the beat movement in the 1960s. The movement itself, unlike the so-called " Lost Generation " did not set itself the task of changing society, but tried to distance itself from it, while at the same time trying to create its own counter-culture. The art created by artists was influenced by jazz , drugs, occultism , and other attributes of beat movement. The scope of
5307-599: Is typified musically by the O'Jays ' "I Love Music" (UK No. 13, January 1976), which gained popularity before its commercial release at Blackpool Mecca in late 1975. The record that initially popularised this change is usually cited as the Carstairs " It Really Hurts Me Girl " (Red Coach), a record initially released late in 1973 on promotional copies but quickly withdrawn due to lack of interest from American radio stations. The hostility towards any contemporary music style from Northern soul traditionalists at Wigan Casino led to
5490-465: Is without doubt the highest and finest I have seen outside of the USA ... never thought I'd live to see the day where people could so relate the rhythmic content of Soul music to bodily movement to such a skilled degree!" The venue's owners had successfully filled the vacancy left by Eagle with a growing roster of specialist soul DJs including Brian Rae, Paul Davies and Alan 'Ollie' Ollerton. In America, after
5673-946: The Chesterfield , North East Derbyshire , Bolsover , and Derbyshire Dales districts have joined with districts of South Yorkshire to form the Sheffield City Region , along with the Bassetlaw District of Nottinghamshire, although for all other purposes these districts still remain in their respective East Midlands counties. Some parts of northern Derbyshire (including High Peak), Shropshire and Staffordshire are served by BBC North West . Some areas of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire are served by BBC Yorkshire (formerly BBC North), whilst eastern Yorkshire shares its BBC region with Lincolnshire and small parts of Nottinghamshire and north west Norfolk . The historic part of Lincolnshire known as Lindsey (in essence
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5856-814: The Great Depression during their formative years , seeing slightly older people serve in WWII and being influenced by the rise of left-wing politics and the spread of Communism . The name was inspired by the Russian suffix "-nik", which was used to denote members of various political or social groups. The term "beat" originally was used by Jack Kerouac in 1948 to describe his social circle of friends and fellow writers, such as Allen Ginsberg , William S. Burroughs , and Neal Cassady . Kerouac said that "beat" had multiple meanings, such as "beaten down", "beatific", "beat up", and "beat out". He also associated it with
6039-578: The Great Depression the outer British unemployment rate was 16.1% and the Southern rate was less than half that at 7.1%. The weakening economy and interwar unemployment caused several episodes of social unrest in the region, including the 1926 general strike and the Jarrow March . The Great Depression highlighted the weakness of Northern England's specialised economy: as world trade declined, demand for ships, steel, coal and textiles all fell. For
6222-716: The High Peak borough of Derbyshire are included in the Greater Manchester Built-Up Area , as villages and hamlets there such as Tintwistle, Crowden and Woodhead were formerly in Cheshire before local government boundary changes in 1974, due to their close proximity to the city of Manchester , and before this the borough was considered to be part of the Greater Manchester Statutory City Region . More recently,
6405-516: The Irish Sea and a short border with Wales , and its eastern the North Sea . Its southern border is often debated, and there has been controversy in defining what geographies or cultures precisely constitute the 'North of England' — if, indeed, it exists as a coherent entity at all. Many Industrial Revolution innovations began in Northern England, and its cities were the crucibles of many of
6588-545: The Norman Conquest , and to put an end to the rebellion, William ordered the Harrying of the North . In the winter of 1069–1070, towns, villages and farms were systematically destroyed across much of Yorkshire as well as northern Lancashire and County Durham. The region was gripped by famine and much of Northern England was deserted. Chroniclers at the time reported a hundred thousand deaths – modern estimates place
6771-515: The North Sea coastline. The geography of the North has been heavily shaped by the ice sheets of the Pleistocene era, which often reached as far south as the Midlands. Glaciers carved deep, craggy valleys in the central uplands, and, when they melted, deposited large quantities of fluvio-glacial material in lowland areas like the Cheshire and Solway Plains . On the eastern side of
6954-637: The North of England , is a region that forms the northern part of England and mainly corresponds to the historic counties of Cheshire , Cumberland , Durham , Lancashire , Northumberland , Westmorland and Yorkshire . The region also coincides with the medieval era borders of Anglian Northumbria , the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik , and the Brythonic Celtic Hen Ogledd kingdoms . The North
7137-644: The Personal Rule period. By the time war broke out in 1642, King Charles had moved his court to York, and Northern England was to become a major base of the Royalist forces until they were routed at the Battle of Marston Moor . At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution , Northern England had plentiful coal and water power while the poor agriculture in the uplands meant that labour in
7320-919: The Prestatyn Weekender in North Wales . In an August 2008 article in The Times , broadcaster Terry Christian argued that Northern soul was undergoing a distinct revival in the late 2000s. Christian cited the popularity of regular revivals of Twisted Wheel soul all-nighters at the original venue (in Whitworth Street , Manchester) plus the Beat Boutique Northern soul all-nighters at the Ruby Lounge and MMUnion in Manchester. Many who ceased their involvement in
7503-695: The River Mersey (the line between the Humber and Mersey estuaries being a common boundary) and River Trent . The Isle of Man is occasionally included in broad geographical definitions of "the North" (for example, by the Survey of English Dialects , VisitBritain and BBC North West ), although it is politically and culturally distinct from England. Some areas of Derbyshire , Lincolnshire , Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire have northern characteristics and include satellites of northern cities. Towns in
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7686-468: The Wirral Peninsula to Doncaster , taking in the cities of Liverpool , Manchester , Leeds , and Sheffield , with a population of at least 7.6 million. Analysis by The Northern Way in 2006 found that 90% of the population of the North lived in and around: Liverpool , Central Lancashire , Manchester , Sheffield , Leeds , Hull and Humber Ports , Tees Valley and Tyne and Wear . At
7869-463: The communist movement , other than the antipathy both philosophies shared towards capitalism. Those with only a superficial familiarity with the Beat movement often saw this similarity and assumed the two movements had more in common. The Beat movement introduced Asian religions to Western society. These religions provided the Beat generation with new views of the world and corresponded with its desire to rebel against conservative middle-class values of
8052-482: The ice ages , Northern England was buried under ice sheets, and little evidence remains of habitation – either because the climate made the area uninhabitable, or because glaciation destroyed most evidence of human activity. The northernmost cave art in Europe is found at Creswell Crags in northern Derbyshire, near modern-day Sheffield, which shows signs of Neanderthal inhabitation 50 to 60 thousand years ago, and of
8235-788: The local Celtic languages . They are a dialectal continuum , middle areas that have a crossover between varieties spoken, around the North. Traditional dialectal areas are defined by their historic county or combined historic counties; including Cumbrian (Cumberland and Westmorland), Lancastrian (Lancashire), Northumbrian (Northumberland and Durham) and Tyke (Yorkshire). During the Industrial Revolution urban areas gained some or further distinction from traditional dialects; such as areas Mackem (Wearside), Mancunian (Manchester), Pitmatic (Great Northern Coalfield), Geordie (Tyneside), Smoggie (Teesside), Scouse (Liverpool) and around Hull . Linguists have attempted to define
8418-800: The 1640 Treaty of Ripon King Charles I was forced to temporarily cede Northumberland and County Durham to the Scots and pay to keep the Scottish armies there. To raise enough funds and ratify the final peace treaty, Charles had to call what became the Long Parliament , beginning the process that led to the First English Civil War . In 1641, the Long Parliament abolished the Council of the North for perceived abuses during
8601-409: The 1950s reshaped Northern England once more, and there are now significant populations from the Indian subcontinent in towns and cities such as Bradford, Leeds, Preston and Sheffield. Deindustrialisation continued and unemployment gradually increased during the 1970s, but accelerated during the government of Margaret Thatcher , who chose not to encourage growth in the North if it risked growth in
8784-406: The 1950s, old post-1930s radicalism, mainstream culture, and institutional religions in America. By 1958, many Beat writers published writings on Buddhism. This was the year Jack Kerouac published his novel The Dharma Bums , whose central character (whom Kerouac based on himself) sought Buddhist contexts for events in his life. Allen Ginsberg's spiritual journey to India in 1963 also influenced
8967-410: The 1970s and 1980s mixed with early house music . Tracks similar to "rare grooves" had begun to see a following in the 1970s Northern soul movement, which curated a collection of rare and obscure soul. Many of these labels were set up by DJs and collectors who had been part of the original Northern soul scene. The 1980s – often dismissed as a low period for Northern soul by those who had left the scene in
9150-422: The 1970s — featured almost 100 new venues in places such as Bradford , London, Peterborough , Leighton Buzzard , Whitchurch , Coventry and Leicester . Pre-eminent among the 1980s venues were Stafford 's Top of the World and London 's 100 Club . Today there are regular Northern soul events in various parts of the United Kingdom, such as the Nightshift Club all-nighters at the Bisley Pavilion in Surrey and
9333-440: The 1975 UK No. 9 hit "Footsee", now credited to Wigan's Chosen Few. Music journalist , Stuart Maconie , described the record as an "embarrassing novelty" and "execrable" in his autobiography, Cider With Roadies . In addition, the Northern soul favourite " Skiing in the Snow ", originally by the Invitations, was covered by local band Wigan's Ovation, and reached No. 12 in the UK Singles Chart. These versions were not well received by
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#17327647372019516-413: The 2011 census, 86% of the Northern population lived in urban areas as defined by the Office for National Statistics , compared to 82% for England as a whole. Due to differing definitions and city limits , the list of largest towns and cities may be misleading. For example while Manchester is ranked fourth as a city, the greater urban area it leads ( Greater Manchester Built-up Area ) is the largest in
9699-450: The Beat movement. After studying religious texts alongside monks, Ginsberg deduced that what linked the function of poetry to Asian religions was their mutual goal of achieving ultimate truth. His discovery of Hindu mantra chants, a form of oral delivery, subsequently influenced Beat poetry. Beat pioneers who followed a Buddhism-influenced spiritual path felt that Asian religions offered a profound understanding of human nature and insights into
9882-536: The Beatles . Vee-Jay acquired the rights to some of the early recordings by the Beatles through a licensing deal with EMI , as the American affiliate Capitol Records was initially uninterested in the group. Calvin Carter later said, "There was a number one record over in England at the time. The group turned out to be the Beatles and we got a five-year contract on the Beatles as a pickup on the Frank Ifield contract". In America, Holland-Dozier-Holland's successful acts on Invictus Records were Freda Payne and Chairmen of
10065-405: The Board . They also released Parliament 's first album, Osmium . The label was distributed by Capitol Records from 1969 to 1972 and then by Columbia Records from 1973 onwards. In September 1970, the British music magazine NME reported that Invictus had the UK's top two singles . Freda Payne's " Band of Gold " was No. 1, while Chairmen of the Board's " Give Me Just a Little More Time "
10248-553: The Brigantes made the Romans wary, and they were conquered in a war beginning in the 70s under the governorship of Quintus Petillius Cerialis . The Romans created the province of " Britannia Inferior " (Lower Britain) in the North, and it was ruled from the city of Eboracum (modern York ). Eboracum and Deva Victrix (modern Chester) were the main legionary bases in the region, with other smaller forts including Mamucium (Manchester) and Cataractonium ( Catterick ). Britannia Inferior extended as far north as Hadrian's Wall , which
10431-411: The Butlers and "Seven Days Too Long" by Chuck Wood. A large proportion of Northern soul's original audience came from the 1960s mod subculture . In the late 1960s, when some mods started embracing freakbeat and psychedelic rock , other mods – especially those in Northern England – stuck to the original soundtrack of soul and Blue Beat . From the latter category, two strands emerged: skinheads and
10614-413: The Carstairs record. Went back to Blackpool, played the record and changed the whole scene. Blackpool Mecca suddenly became the home of this new Northern soul sound. I would've heard this record in 1973, when it was supposedly released, but not obtained it until 1974. Other major Northern soul venues in the 1970s include the Catacombs in Wolverhampton, Va Va's in Bolton, the Talk of the North all-nighters at
10797-421: The Detroit sound of Motown pop. Most of the records were complete failures in their own time and place... but in Northern England from the end of the 1960s through to its heyday in the middle 1970s, were exhumed and exalted." Other related music styles also gained acceptance in the Northern soul scene. Slower, less-danceable soul records were often played, such as Barbara Mills' "Queen of Fools" (popular in 1972 at
10980-528: The Faith , a musical based on the Wigan Casino scene and featuring Northern soul music. It was staged at the Central School of Speech and Drama 's Webber Douglas Studio, with a revival at the same venue in September 2010. According to Will Hermes of Rolling Stone , the 2008 Raphael Saadiq album The Way I See It is an original evocation of "classic Northern soul". The music of Yorkshire singer John Newman has also been described as 'Northern soul', including his No. 1 hit " Love Me Again ". One version of
11163-460: The Floor " (UK No. 42, September 1975) and Little Anthony & the Imperials ' " Better Use Your Head " (UK No. 42, July 1976). Various recordings were made later in the 1970s specifically aimed at the Northern soul scene, which also went on to become UK top 40 hits. These included: the Exciters ' "Reaching For the Best" (UK No. 31, October 1975), L. J. Johnson's "Your Magic Put a Spell on Me" (UK No. 27, February 1976), and Tommy Hunt 's "Loving On
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#173276473720111346-416: The Golden Torch) and the Mob's "I Dig Everything About You". Every all-nighter at Wigan Casino ended with the playing of three well-known Northern soul songs with a particular going home theme. These came to be known as the "3 before 8" and were: "Time Will Pass You By" by Tobi Legend , "Long After Tonight is Over" by Jimmy Radcliffe and " I'm on My Way " by Dean Parrish . Commercial pop songs that matched
11529-427: The Lake District receive over 3,200 mm (130 in). Lowland regions in the more southern parts of Northern England (such as Cheshire and South Yorkshire) are the warmest with average maximum July temperatures of over 21 °C (70 °F): the highest points in the Pennines and Lake District reach only 17 °C (63 °F). The North has a reputation for cloud and fog – with the west's high average rainfall and
11712-422: The Losing Side" (UK No. 28, August 1976). "Goodbye Nothing To Say", by the white British group the Javells , was identified by Dave McAleer of Pye's Disco Demand label as having an authentic Northern soul feel. McAleer gave acetates to Wigan Casino DJs Russ Winstanley, Kev Roberts, Richard Searling (a Wigan Casino DJ and promoter), and the tune became popular among the dancers at the venue. Disco Demand then released
11895-423: The Midlands and the North of England. Some nightclubs regarded as the most important in this decade were the Golden Torch , and Wigan Casino (1973 to 1981). Although Wigan Casino is now the most well-known, the best-attended Northern soul all-night venue at the beginning of the decade was actually the Golden Torch, where regular Friday night soul "all-nighters" began during the latter months of 1970. Chris Burton,
12078-492: The North East and Cumbria, excluding the entirety, or at least the majority, of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Some settlements, including Sheffield, located in the far south of what would typically be defined as "the North", have been referred to as being in the " North Midlands " as opposed to "the North". Personal definitions of the North vary greatly. When asked to draw a dividing line between North and South, Southerners tend to draw this line further south than Northerners do. From
12261-480: The North East) or yous (common in areas with historical Irish communities). Many dialects use me as a possessive ("me car") and some treat us likewise ("us cars") or use the alternative wor ("wor cars"). Possessive pronouns are also used to mark the names of relatives in speech (for example, a relative called Joan would be referred to as "our Joan" in conversation). With urbanisation, distinctive urban accents have arisen which often differ greatly from
12444-437: The North emigrated, chiefly to the US, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The First World War was the turning point for the economy of Northern England. In the interwar years , the Northern economy began to be eclipsed by the South – in 1913–1914, unemployment in "outer Britain" (the North, plus Scotland and Wales) was 2.6% while the rate in Southern England was more than double that at 5.5%, but in 1937 during
12627-433: The North starts somewhere in North Yorkshire around the River Tees – the Yorkshire poet Simon Armitage suggests Thirsk , Northallerton or Richmond – and does not include cities like Manchester and Leeds , nor the majority of Yorkshire. Northern England is not a homogeneous unit, and some have entirely rejected the idea that the North exists as a coherent entity, claiming that considerable cultural differences across
12810-406: The North. The Lake District includes England's highest peak, Scafell Pike , which rises to 978 m (3,209 ft), its largest lake, Windermere , and its deepest lake, Wastwater . Northern England is one of the most treeless areas in Europe, and to combat this the government plans to plant over 50 million trees in a new Northern Forest . Uniquely for such a large urban belt in Europe,
12993-428: The Northern soul community as their success brought wider awareness to the subculture. Maconie described this song as 'a bland, modernised, easier to license version of a classic Northern tune originally by US artists', and said it 'really stuck in the purists' craw even then'. The first domestic disco hit, " Kung Fu Fighting " (UK No. 1, 1974), which was created by singer Carl Douglas and producer Biddu in Britain,
13176-447: The Northern soul mould by playing a new release by the Carstairs ("It Really Hurts Me Girl") in the early 1970s: Back in England I found this dealer called John Anderson who'd moved from Scotland to King's Lynn. I told him I wanted this Carstairs record and he'd just had a shipment in from America of 100,000 demo records from radio stations. We went through this collection, me, Andy Hanley, and Bernie Golding, and we found three copies of
13359-480: The Northern soul movement emanates from the 1960s Black Power movement in the United States. On his visit to the Twisted Wheel in 1971, Dave Godin recalled that "...very many young fellows wore black "right on now" racing gloves ... between records one would hear the occasional cry of "right on now!" or see a clenched gloved fist rise over the tops of the heads of the dancers!" In 2014, the clenched fist logo
13542-482: The Northern soul scene was enhanced by the possession of rare records, but exclusivity was not enough on its own. The records had to conform to a certain musical style and gain acceptance on the dance floor. Northern soul collectors seek rare singles by artists such as Holly Maxwell , Gene Chandler , Barbara Acklin , the Casualeers , and Jimmy Burns . Frank Wilson 's " Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) " has been rated
13725-772: The Northern soul scene was on the verge of disintegrating. However, the late 1970s mod revival , the thriving scooterboy subculture, and the late 1980s acid jazz movement were popular among music fans. The popularity of the music was introduced by a wave of reissues and compilation albums from minor independent record labels. The rare groove boom started in the late 1980s with underground DJ Barrie Sharpe and Lascelles Gordon. Both played that brand of obscure American import records, singles and albums ("looking back retrospectively"), that they had in their collection. These were bought from specialist import record shops such as Moondogs in East Ham and Contempo record shop at 42 Hanway Street in
13908-653: The Northern soul scene. Early Northern soul fashion included strong elements of the classic mod style, such as button-down Ben Sherman shirts, blazers with centre vents and unusual numbers of buttons, trickers and brogue shoes and shrink-to-fit Levi's jeans. Some non-mod items, such as bowling shirts, were also popular. Later, Northern soul dancers started to wear light and loose-fitting clothing for reasons of practicality. This included high-waisted, baggy Oxford bags and sports vests. These were often covered with sew-on badges representing soul club memberships. The clenched raised fist symbol that has become associated with
14091-684: The North–South divide strengthened the distinct Northern English identity, which, despite regeneration in some of the major cities, remains to this day. The region saw several IRA attacks during the Troubles , including the M62 coach bombing , the Warrington bomb attacks and the 1992 and 1996 Manchester bombings . The latter was the largest bomb detonation in Great Britain since the end of
14274-725: The Norwegian king Harald Hardrada by the Anglo-Saxon Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Stamford Bridge near York marked the beginning of the end of Viking rule in England, and the almost immediate defeat of Godwinson at the hands of the Norman William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings was in turn the overthrow of the Anglo-Saxon order. The Northumbrian and Danish aristocracy resisted
14457-760: The Pennines, a former glacial lake forms the Humberhead Levels : a large area of fenland which drains into the Humber and which is very fertile and productive farmland. Much of the mountainous upland remains undeveloped, and of the ten national parks in England , five – the Peak District, the Lake District, the North York Moors, the Yorkshire Dales , and Northumberland National Park – are located partly or entirely in
14640-748: The Pier and Winter Gardens in Cleethorpes , Tiffany's in Coalville , Samantha's in Sheffield , Neil Rushton 's Heart of England soul club all-dayers at the Ritz in Manchester and the Nottingham Palais. As the 1970s progressed, the Northern soul scene expanded even further nationally. There was a notable scene in the east of England: Shades Northampton was one of the leading venues in this area of
14823-800: The Romans as Brigantia . Other tribes mentioned in ancient histories, which may have been part of the Brigantes or separate nations, are the Carvetii of modern-day Cumbria and the Parisi of east Yorkshire. The Brigantes allied with the Roman Empire during the Roman conquest of Britain : Tacitus records that they handed the resistance leader Caratacus over to the Empire in 51. Power struggles within
15006-537: The Roses , including the decisive Battle of Wakefield , although the modern-day conception of the war as a conflict between Lancashire and Yorkshire is anachronistic – Lancastrians recruited from across Northern England, including Yorkshire, even requiring mercenaries from Scotland and France , while the Yorkists drew most of their power from Southern England, Wales and Ireland. The Anglo-Scottish Wars also touched
15189-560: The Saturday all-nighters. Until his departure in 1968, resident 'All Niter' DJ Bob Dee compiled and supervised the playlist, utilising the newly developed slip-cueing technique to spin the vinyl. Rarer, more up-tempo imported records were added to the playlist in 1969 by the new younger DJs like Brian "45" Phillips up until the club's eventual closure in 1971. After attending one of the venue's all-nighters in November 1970, Godin wrote: "it
15372-486: The Second World War, and damaged or destroyed much of central Manchester. The attack led to Manchester's ageing infrastructure being rebuilt and modernised, sparking the regeneration of the city and making it a leading example of post-industrial redevelopment followed by other cities in the region and beyond. At the 2021 census , Northern England had a population of 15,550,000, in 6,659,700 households. This
15555-455: The South. The era saw the 1984–85 miners' strike , which brought hardship for many Northern mining towns. Northern metropolitan county councils, which were Labour strongholds often with very left-wing leadership (such as Militant-dominated Liverpool and the so-called " People's Republic of South Yorkshire "), had high-profile conflicts with the national government. The increasing awareness of
15738-478: The Southern perspective, Northern England is sometimes defined jokingly as the area north of the Watford Gap between Northampton and Leicester – a definition which would include much of the Midlands . Various cities and towns have been described as or promoted themselves as the "gateway to the North", including Crewe , Stoke-on-Trent , and Sheffield . For some in the northernmost reaches of England,
15921-735: The Spinners , and the Monitors . A fifth label, Soul, featured Jr. Walker & the All Stars , Jimmy Ruffin , Shorty Long , the Originals , and Gladys Knight & the Pips . The Sapphires , especially their songs "Slow Fizz", "Gotta Have Your Love" (which reached No. 33 on the R&;B chart), "Evil One", and "Gonna Be a Big Thing", became popular in the Northern soul scene, including during
16104-1046: The Supremes featuring Diana Ross , the Four Tops , and the Jackson 5 , while Stevie Wonder , Marvin Gaye , the Marvelettes , and the Miracles had hits on the Tamla label. The company had several labels in addition to the Tamla and Motown. A third label, which Gordy named after himself, featured the Temptations , the Contours , Edwin Starr , and Martha and the Vandellas . A fourth label, V.I.P., released recordings by
16287-631: The Tams ' 1964 recording " Hey Girl Don't Bother Me " (UK No. 1, July 1971) – which was popularised by Midlands DJ Carl Dene – the Fascinations ' 1966 single " Girls Are Out to Get You " (UK No. 32, 1971), the Elgins ' " Heaven Must Have Sent You " (UK No. 3 July 1971), the Newbeats ' 1965 American hit " Run, Baby Run (Back Into My Arms) " (UK No. 10, October 1971), Bobby Hebb 's "Love Love Love" which
16470-508: The Tees, Deira corresponded roughly to the eastern half of modern-day Yorkshire, Rheged to Cumbria, and Elmet to the western-half of Yorkshire. Bernicia and Deira were first united as Northumbria by Aethelfrith , a king of Bernicia who conquered Deira around the year 604. Northumbria then saw a Golden Age in cultural, scholarly and monastic activity, centred on Lindisfarne and aided by Irish monks. The north-west of England retains vestiges of
16653-527: The UK's potash . Northern England has a cool, wet oceanic climate with small areas of subpolar oceanic climate in the uplands. Averaged across the entire region, Northern England temperature range and sunshine duration is similar to the UK average and it sees substantially less rainfall than Scotland or Wales. It is cooler, wetter and cloudier than England as a whole, containing both England's coldest ( Cross Fell ) and rainiest point ( Seathwaite Fell ). These averages disguise considerable variation across
16836-472: The UK, several of which became popular enough to make the UK charts several years after their original issue. Dave Godin is generally credited with being the first UK entrepreneur to start this trend, setting up the Soul City label in 1968, and striking a deal with EMI to license Gene Chandler 's 1965 recording "Nothing Can Stop Me", which had been popular for several years at the Twisted Wheel. Issued as
17019-526: The West end of London, owned by John Abbey, founder of Blues & Soul magazine. The magazine also had its own record label (also called Contempo), releasing music from the 1970s, which, starting in 1984, played at a club previously known as Whisky-A-Go-Go, founded by Rene Gelston in Wardour Street . Norman Jay's show was a collaboration with DJ Judge Jules , featuring a mainly urban soundtrack from
17202-608: The Yorkshire-based Pilgrimage of Grace , all against Henry VIII . His daughter Elizabeth I faced another Catholic rebellion, the Rising of the North . The region would become the centre of recusancy as prominent Catholic families in Cumbria, Lancashire and Yorkshire refused to convert to Protestantism. Royal power over the region was exercised through the Council of the North at King's Manor , York, which
17385-750: The absence of the FOOT – STRUT split (so put and putt are homophones ), the reduction of the definite article the to a glottal stop (usually represented in writing as t ' or occasionally th ' , although it is often not pronounced as a /t/ sound) or its total elision , and the T-to-R rule that leads to the pronunciation of t as a rhotic consonant in phrases like get up ( [ɡɛɹ ʊp] ). The pronouns thou and thee survive in some Northern English dialects, although these are dying out outside very rural areas, and many dialects have an informal second-person plural pronoun: either ye (common in
17568-625: The activity was concentrated in the cultural circles of New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and North Carolina. Prominent representatives of the trend were artists Wallace Berman , Jay DeFeo , Jess Collins , Robert Frank , Claes Oldenburg and Larry Rivers . The culture of the beat generation has become a kind of intersection for representatives of the creative intellect of the United States associated with visual and performing art, which are usually attributed to other areas and trends of artistic expression, such as assemblage , happening , funk art and Neo-Dadaism . They made efforts to destroy
17751-465: The approach of traditional culture to hushing up the dark side of American life – violence, corruption, social inequality, racism. They tried through art to create a new way of life based on the ideals of rebellion and freedom. Critics highlight the artist Wallace Berman as the main representative of the movement. In his work concentrated many of the characteristic features of hipsters, especially in his collages made on photocopied photographs, which are
17934-727: The area overwhelm any similarities. The Pennines , an upland range sometimes referred to as "the backbone of England" run through most of the area defined as northern England, which stretches from the Tyne Gap to the Peak District . Other uplands in the North include the Lake District with England's highest mountains, the Cheviot Hills adjoining the border with Scotland, and the North York Moors near
18117-484: The area was cheap. Mining and milling, which had been practised on a small scale in the area for generations, began to grow and centralise. The boom in industrial textile manufacture is sometimes attributed to the damp climate and soft water making it easier to wash and work fibres, although the success of Northern fabric mills has no single clear source. Readily available coal and the discovery of large iron deposits in Cumbria and Cleveland allowed ironmaking and, with
18300-638: The beatnik epicenter of Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Among the humor books, Beat, Beat, Beat was a 1959 Signet paperback of cartoons by Phi Beta Kappa Princeton graduate William F. Brown, who looked down on the movement from his position in the TV department of the Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn advertising agency. Suzuki Beane (1961), by Sandra Scoppettone with Louise Fitzhugh illustrations,
18483-416: The being, existence and reality of mankind. Many of the Beat advocates believed that the core concepts of Asian religious philosophies had the means of elevating American society's consciousness, and these concepts informed their main ideologies. Notable Beat writers such as Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Gary Snyder were drawn to Buddhism to the extent that they each, at different periods in their lives, followed
18666-540: The blends of tea enjoyed in the region. Rich deposits of iron ore are found in Cumbria and the North East, and fluorspar and baryte are also plentiful in northern parts of the Pennines. Salt mining in Cheshire has a long history, and both remaining rock salt mines in Great Britain are in the North: Winsford Mine in Cheshire and Boulby Mine in North Yorkshire, which also produces half of
18849-491: The booming industrial cities, some were escaping poverty, some were servants or slaves, some were sailors who chose to settle in the port towns, some were Jews fleeing pogroms on the continent, and some were migrants originally stranded at Liverpool after attempting to catch an onwards ship to the United States or to colonies of the British Empire . At the same time, hundreds of thousands from depressed rural areas of
19032-522: The cities in this region are all as recent as the Industrial Revolution – most of them previously scattered villages. Vast urban areas have emerged along the coasts and rivers, and they run almost contiguously into each other in places. Near the east coast, trade fuelled the growth of major ports and settlements ( Kingston upon Hull , Newcastle upon Tyne , , Middlesbrough and Sunderland ) to create multiple urban areas. Inland needs of trade and industry produced an almost continuous urbanisation from
19215-418: The city centre destroyed. Hull, the worst bombed city outside of London suffered damage to 98% of all buildings, the highest percentage of any town or city. The rebuilding that followed, and the simultaneous slum clearance that saw whole neighbourhoods demolished and rebuilt, transformed the faces of Northern cities. Immigration from the " New Commonwealth ", especially Pakistan and Bangladesh , starting in
19398-729: The concern of local authorities that soul nights attracted drug dealers and users. Roger Eagle, DJ at the Twisted Wheel club in Manchester, cited amphetamine usage among participants as his reason for quitting the club in 1967. Of the regular attendees, he said, "All they wanted was fast-tempo black dance music... [but they were] too blocked on amphetamines to articulate exactly which Jackie Wilson record they wanted me to play." According to Hillegonda C. Rietveld, Northern soul "dancers were fuelled by... Dexedrine tablets". The Northern soul scene has notably influenced DJ culture and certain musicians and has been portrayed in literature, theatre and cinema. Northern England Northern England , or
19581-584: The conquest, which likely populated much of the desolated regions of Cumbria, and which was persistent enough that the town of Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire still had an ethnic enclave called Flemingate in the thirteenth century. During the Anarchy , Scotland invaded Northern England and took much of the land north of the Tees . In the 1139 peace treaty that followed, Prince Henry of Scotland
19764-833: The country during the early 1970s until it closed in 1975. Later came the all-nighters at the St Ivo Centre in St Ives, the Phoenix Soul club at the Wirrina Stadium in Peterborough and the Howard Mallett in Cambridge . Other towns with notable Northern soul venues at this time included Kettering , Coventry , Bournemouth , Southampton and Bristol . When Wigan Casino closed in 1981, many believed
19947-412: The creation of the spin-off modern soul movement in the early 1980s. Some Northern soul records were so rare that only a handful of copies were known to exist, so specific DJs and clubs became associated with particular records that were almost exclusively in their own playlists. Keith Rylatt and Phil Scott wrote: As venues such as the Twisted Wheel evolved into northern soul clubs in the late 1960s and
20130-474: The dancers increasingly demanded newly discovered sounds, DJs began to acquire and play rare and often deleted US releases that had not gained even a release in the UK. These records were sometimes obtained through specialist importers or, in some cases, by DJs visiting the US and purchasing old warehouse stock. Many of the original singers and musicians remained unaware of their newfound popularity for many years. As
20313-426: The dead wall window of our civilization ... Kerouac explained what he meant by "beat" at a Brandeis Forum, "Is There A Beat Generation?", on November 8, 1958, at New York's Hunter College Playhouse. The seminar's panelists were Kerouac, James A. Wechsler , Princeton anthropologist Ashley Montagu and author Kingsley Amis . Wechsler, Montagu, and Amis wore suits, while Kerouac was clad in black jeans, ankle boots and
20496-747: The desert". Monastic orders such as the Cistercians became significant players in the economy of Northern England – the Cistercian Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire became the largest and richest of the Northern abbeys, and would remain so until the Dissolution of the Monasteries . Other Cistercian abbeys are at Rievaulx , Kirkstall and Byland . The 7th-century Whitby Abbey was Benedictine and Bolton Abbey , Augustinian . A significant Flemish immigration followed
20679-496: The discovery of grave goods in Northern churchyards suggests that Norse funeral rites replaced Christian ones for a time. Viking control of certain areas, particularly around Yorkshire, is recalled in the etymology of many place names : the thorpe in town names such as Cleethorpes and Scunthorpe , the kirk in Kirklees and Ormskirk and the by of Whitby and Grimsby all have Norse roots. The 1066 defeat of
20862-465: The doo-wop boom was over, Northern soul started. Motown, Chess, and Vee-Jay records were notable Northern soul labels. By the mid-1960s, Motown got good songwriters and producers such as Robinson, A&R chief William "Mickey" Stevenson , Brian Holland , Lamont Dozier , and Norman Whitfield . From 1961 to 1971, Motown had 110 top-10 hits. Top artists on the Motown label during that period included
21045-656: The earliest evidence of carpentry in the form of a carved tree trunk from 11000 BC. The Lincolnshire and Yorkshire Wolds around the Humber Estuary were settled and farmed in the Bronze Age , and the Ferriby Boats – one of the best-preserved finds of the era – were discovered near Hull in 1937. In the more mountainous regions of the Peak District, hillforts were the main Bronze Age settlement and
21228-456: The earliest recording to possess this style was the 1965 single " I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch) " by the Four Tops , although that record was never popular in the Northern soul scene because it was too mainstream. The venue most commonly associated with the early development of the Northern soul scene was the Twisted Wheel in Manchester. The club began in the early 1950s as a beatnik coffee bar called The Left Wing, but in early 1963,
21411-426: The early 1970s, Northern soul dancing became more athletic, resembling the later dance styles of disco and break dancing . Featuring spins, flips, karate kicks and backdrops, club dancing styles were often inspired by the stage performances of touring American soul acts such as Little Anthony and the Imperials and Jackie Wilson . In the late 1960s and early 1970s, popular Northern soul records generally dated from
21594-430: The early days at the Twisted Wheel Club. Chicago label Vee-Jay Records became a major soul label with Jerry Butler , Gene Chandler , Dee Clark , and Betty Everett hitting singles on both the pop and R&B charts. Vee-Jay was also the first label to nationally issue a record by Gladys Knight & the Pips. Vee-Jay had significant success with pop/rock acts, such as the Four Seasons (their first non-black act) and
21777-417: The east coast experiences a distinctive sea fret . Smog in urban areas was prevalent from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution; sunshine duration has increased in urban areas in recent years with the Clean Air Act 1956 and the area's heavy industry in decline. The English spoken today in the North has been shaped by the area's history, and some dialects retain features inherited from Old Norse and
21960-534: The extensively researched sociological study Northern Soul: Music, drugs and subcultural identity . This work details the lifestyles associated with the Northern soul scene and the extensive use of amphetamines (otherwise known as speed) by many involved. Wilson argues that, although many did not use drugs, their usage was heavily ingrained in the fast-paced culture of the Northern soul scene, contributing to participants' ability to stay up all night dancing. Many clubs and events were closed down or refused licences due to
22143-474: The extent of the historical Northumbria , which excludes Cheshire and northern Lincolnshire, though the latter formed the Kingdom of Lindsey, which was periodically under Northumbrian rule. The Redcliffe-Maud Report (1969) proposed that southern Cheshire be grouped with north Staffordshire as part of a West Midlands province as opposed to a North West England one. Occasionally, "Northern England" may be used to describe England's northernmost reaches only, broadly
22326-429: The figures associated with the original Beat movement, particularly Kerouac, embraced libertarian and conservative ideas). An openness to African American culture and arts was apparent in literature and music, notably jazz. While Caen and other writers implied a connection with communism, no obvious or direct connection occurred between Beat philosophy, as expressed by the literary movement's leading authors, and that of
22509-412: The historical accents of the surrounding rural areas and sometimes share features with Southern English accents. Northern English dialects remain an important part of the culture of the region, and the desire of speakers to assert their local identity has led to accents such as Scouse and Geordie becoming more distinctive and spreading into surrounding areas. The contrasting geography of Northern England
22692-418: The invention of the Bessemer process , steelmaking to take root in the region. High quality steel in turn fed the shipyards that opened along the coasts, especially on Tyneside and at Barrow-in-Furness . The Great Famine in Ireland of the 1840s drove migrants across the Irish Sea , and many settled in the industrial cities of the North, especially Manchester and Liverpool – at the 1851 census , 13% of
22875-491: The jazz/ hipster slang of the 1940s, peppering their works with words such as "square", "cats", "cool" and "dig". At the time the term "beatnik" was coined, a trend existed among young college students to adopt the stereotype. Men emulated the trademark look of bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie by wearing goatees , horn-rimmed glasses and berets , rolling their own cigarettes, and playing bongos . Fashions for women included black leotards and long, straight, unadorned hair, in
23058-487: The late 1970s have now returned to the scene and regularly participate in such events. In 2009, Paul O'Grady included a Northern Soul Triple in his weekly BBC Radio 2 show. He played three Northern soul hits, often at the request of his listeners. The Northern soul movement inspired the film Soulboy (2010), directed by Shimmy Marcus, and at least one novel: Do I Love You? (2008) by Paul McDonald . In June 2010, theatre director Fiona Laird wrote and directed Keeping
23241-419: The late 1970s, the club had its own spin-off record label, Casino Classics. By this time, Wigan Casino was coming under criticism from many soul fans about selling out the format and playing anything that came along. The contemporary black American soul was changing with the advent of funk , disco and jazz-funk , and the supply of recordings with the fast-paced Northern soul sound began to dwindle rapidly. As
23424-399: The latest American R&B music began to grow. Pubs such as the Eagle in Birmingham were frequented by young blue-eyed soul singers such as Steve Winwood , who released songs similar to the early U.S. soul music. By 1968 the reputation of the Twisted Wheel and the type of music being played there had grown nationwide, and soul fans were travelling from all over the United Kingdom to attend
23607-402: The locals were most likely pastoralists raising livestock. Roman histories name the Celtic tribe that occupied the majority of Northern England as the Brigantes , likely meaning "Highlanders". Whether the Brigantes were a unified group or a looser federation of tribes around the Pennines is debated, but the name appears to have been adopted by the inhabitants of the region, which was known by
23790-478: The lowest proportions of White British outside London. Beatnik Beatniks were members of a social movement in the mid-20th century, who subscribed to an anti- materialistic lifestyle. They rejected the conformity and consumerism of mainstream American culture and expressed themselves through various forms of art, such as literature, poetry, music, and painting. They also experimented with spirituality, drugs, sexuality, and travel. The term "beatnik"
23973-528: The mid-1960s Motown Records , usually combined with soulful vocals. These types of records, which suited the athletic dancing that was prevalent, became known on the scene as "stompers". Notable examples include Tony Clarke's "Landslide" (popularised by Ian Levine at Blackpool Mecca) and Gloria Jones ’ " Tainted Love " (purchased by Richard Searling on a trip to the United States in 1973 and popularised at Va Va’s in Bolton, and later, Wigan Casino). According to Northern soul DJ Ady Croadsell, viewed retrospectively,
24156-404: The mid-1960s. This meant that the movement was sustained (and new recordings added to playlists) by prominent DJs discovering rare and previously overlooked records. Later on, certain clubs and DJs began to move away from the 1960s sound and began to play newer releases with a more contemporary sound. The term "Northern soul" emanated from the record shop Soul City in Covent Garden , London, which
24339-649: The more northern parts of the region. As speech has changed, there is little consensus on what defines a "Northern" accent or dialect. Northern English accents have not undergone the TRAP – BATH split , and a common shibboleth to distinguish them from Southern ones is the Northern use of the short a (the near-open front unrounded vowel ) in words such as bath and castle . On the opposite border, most Northern English accents can be distinguished from Scottish accents because they are non-rhotic , although some Lancashire and Northumberland accents remain rhotic. Other features common to many Northern English accents are
24522-496: The most famous beatnik venues were the Six Gallery in San Francisco, where Ginsberg first read his poem " Howl " in 1955; the Gaslight Cafe in New York City, where many poets performed; and the City Lights Bookstore , also in San Francisco, where Kerouac's novel On the Road was published in 1957. Beatniks also traveled across the country and abroad, seeking new experiences and inspiration. Some of their destinations included Mexico, Morocco, India, Japan, and France. Beatniks had
24705-428: The most part, Northern factories were still using nineteenth-century technology, and were not able to keep up with advances in industries such as motors, chemicals and electricals, while the expansion of the electric grid removed the North's advantages in terms of power generation and meant it was now more economic to build new factories in the Midlands or South. The industrial concentration in Northern England made it
24888-403: The movement who went on to become one of its chroniclers, believed that the news media saddled the movement for the long term with a set of false images: Reporters are not generally well-versed in artistic movements, or the history of literature or art. And most are certain that their readers, or viewers, are of limited intellectual ability and must have things explained simply, in any case. Thus,
25071-468: The musical term "beat", which referred to the rhythmic patterns of jazz , a genre that influenced many beatniks. Beatniks often were stereotyped as wearing black clothing, berets, sunglasses, and goatees, and speaking in hip slang that incorporated words like "cool", "dig", "groovy", and "square". They frequented coffeehouses, bookstores, bars, and clubs, where they listened to jazz, read poetry, discussed philosophy, and engaged in political activism. Some of
25254-473: The northern half of the county) is considered by many to be northern, or at least a larger part of Lincolnshire than merely the north and northeast Lincolnshire districts. The geographer Danny Dorling includes most of the West Midlands and part of the East Midlands in his definition of the North, claiming that "ideas of a midlands region add more confusion than light". Conversely, more restrictive definitions of Northern England also exist. Some are based on
25437-461: The owner, stated that by 1972, the club had a membership of 12,500 and had hosted 62,000 separate customer visits. In 1972, white soul group the Four Seasons released the song " The Night " from their May 1972 album Chameleon , a disco song which appealed to the Northern soul scene, and as a result, it was successfully re-released in the UK in the spring of 1975. Wigan Casino began its weekly soul all-nighters in September 1973. Wigan Casino had
25620-468: The phrase "Beat Generation", generalizing from his social circle to characterize the underground, anti-conformist youth gathering in New York City at that time. The name came up in conversation with John Clellon Holmes , who published an early Beat Generation novel titled Go (1952), along with the manifesto This Is the Beat Generation in The New York Times Magazine . In 1954, Nolan Miller published his third novel Why I Am So Beat (Putnam), detailing
25803-416: The political changes that accompanied this social upheaval, from trade unionism to Manchester Liberalism . In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the economy of the North was dominated by heavy industry . Centuries of immigration, invasion, and labour have shaped Northern England's culture, and it has retained countless distinctive accents and dialects , music, arts, and cuisine. Industrial decline in
25986-587: The population of Manchester and Salford were Irish-born, and in Liverpool the figure was 22%. In response there was a wave of anti-Catholic riots and Protestant Orange Orders proliferated across Northern England, chiefly in Lancashire, but also elsewhere in the North. By 1881 there were 374 Orange organisations in Lancashire, 71 in the North East, and 42 in Yorkshire. From further afield, Northern England saw immigration from European countries such as Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia and Scandinavia. Some immigrants were well-to-do industrialists seeking to do business in
26169-479: The rarest and most valuable Northern soul single. In December 2014, collectors were bidding over £11,000 for a copy of the London Records version of Darrell Banks ' " Open the Door to Your Heart ", thought to be the only copy in circulation. It had previously been thought that all the original versions had been destroyed when rival label EMI won the rights to release the single. The Northern soul movement spawned an active market in reissuing older soul recordings in
26352-440: The region and larger than Leeds's urban area ( West Yorkshire Built-up Area ) despite Leeds being the largest as a sole city. The table below shows the urban areas in the region with a population of at least 250,000. Peat is found in thick, plentiful layers across the Pennines and Scottish Borders, and there are many large coalfields, including the Great Northern , Lancashire and South Yorkshire Coalfields . Millstone grit ,
26535-433: The region, and in just 400 years, Berwick-upon-Tweed – now the northernmost town in England – changed hands more than a dozen times. The wars also saw thousands of Scots settle south of the border, chiefly in the border counties and Yorkshire. After the English Reformation , the North saw several Catholic uprisings, including the Lincolnshire Rising , Bigod's Rebellion in Cumberland and Westmorland, and largest of all,
26718-472: The region, due chiefly to the upland regions and adjacent seas. The prevailing winds across the British Isles are westerlies bringing moisture from the Atlantic; this means that the west coast frequently receives strong winds and heavy rainfall while the east coast lies in a rain shadow behind the Pennines. As a result the coast north of the Humber are the driest parts of the North, the Tees basin has 600 mm (24 in) of rain per year while parts of
26901-450: The reporters in the media tried to relate something that was new to already preexisting frameworks and images that were only vaguely appropriate in their efforts to explain and simplify. With a variety of oversimplified and conventional formulas at their disposal, they fell back on the nearest stereotypical approximation of what the phenomenon resembled, as they saw it. And even worse, they did not see it clearly and completely at that. They got
27084-404: The restrictions of society. Modern poets such as the Poets Laureate Ted Hughes and Simon Armitage have found inspiration in the Northern countryside, producing works that take advantage of the sounds and rhythms of Northern English dialects. Meanwhile, the industrialising and urbanising cities of the North gave rise to many masterpieces of social realism . Elizabeth Gaskell was the first in
27267-399: The run-down premises were leased by two Manchester businessmen (Ivor and Phil Abadi) and turned into a music venue. Initially, the Twisted Wheel mainly hosted live music on the weekends and Disc Only nights during the week. DJ Roger Eagle, a collector of imported American soul, jazz and rhythm and blues , was booked around this time, and the club's reputation as a place to hear and dance to
27450-548: The scene increased in popularity, a network of UK record dealers emerged who could acquire further copies of the original vinyl and supply them to fans at prices commensurate with their rarity and desirability. Later on, several UK record labels capitalised on the booming popularity of northern soul and negotiated licences for certain popular records from the copyright holders and reissue them as new 45s or compilation LPs. Among these labels were Casino Classics, PYE Disco Demand, Inferno, Kent Modern and Goldmine. The notoriety of DJs on
27633-416: The second half of the 20th century damaged the North, leading to greater deprivation than in the South. Although urban renewal projects and the transition to a service economy have resulted in strong economic growth in parts of the North, the North–South divide remains in both the economy and culture of England. For government and statistical purposes, Northern England is defined as the area covered by
27816-470: The series Greenwood Press Guides to Subcultures and Countercultures . The book includes a timeline, a glossary and biographical sketches. Others in the Greenwood series: Punks , Hippies , Goths and Flappers . Tales of Beatnik Glory: Volumes I and II by Ed Sanders is, as its name suggests, a collection of short stories, and a definitive introduction to the beatnik scene as lived by its participants. The author, who went on to found The Fugs , lived in
27999-399: The song as a 45 rpm single, reaching UK No. 26 in November 1974. To promote the single on BBC's Top of the Pops , the performer was accompanied by two Wigan Casino dancers. In at least one case, a previously obscure recording was specially remixed to appeal to Northern soul fans: the 1968 recording " Footsee " by Canadian group the Chosen Few was sped up, overdubbed and remixed to emerge as
28182-535: The soundtrack of the beat movement was the modern jazz pioneered by saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie , which the media dubbed bebop . Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg spent much of their time in New York jazz clubs such as the Royal Roost , Minton's Playhouse , Birdland and the Open Door, "shooting the breeze" and "digging the music". Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis rapidly became what Ginsberg dubbed "secret heroes" to this group of aesthetes. The Beat authors borrowed much from
28365-401: The stereotype was absorbed into American culture: "Beat Generation" sold books, sold black turtleneck sweaters and bongos, berets and dark glasses, sold a way of life that seemed like dangerous fun—thus to be either condemned or imitated. Suburban couples could have beatnik parties on Saturday nights and drink too much and fondle each other's wives. Kerouac biographer Ann Charters noted that
28548-440: The store to buy records, but they weren't interested in the latest developments in the black American chart. I devised the name as a shorthand sales term. It was just to say "if you've got customers from the north, don't waste time playing them records currently in the U.S. black chart, just play them what they like – 'Northern Soul'". The music style most associated with Northern soul is the heavy syncopated beat and fast tempo of
28731-455: The term "Beat" was appropriated to become a Madison Avenue marketing tool: The term caught on because it could mean anything. It could even be exploited in the affluent wake of the decade's extraordinary technological inventions. Almost immediately, for example, advertisements by "hip" record companies in New York used the idea of the Beat Generation to sell their new long-playing vinyl records . Lee Streiff, an acquaintance of many members of
28914-400: The three northernmost statistical regions of England: North East England , North West England and Yorkshire and the Humber . This area consists of the ceremonial counties of Cheshire , Cumbria , County Durham , East Riding of Yorkshire , Greater Manchester , Lancashire , Merseyside , Northumberland , North Yorkshire , South Yorkshire , Tyne and Wear and West Yorkshire , plus
29097-431: The total somewhere in the tens of thousands, out of a population of two million. When the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, much of Northern England was still recorded as wasteland, although this may have been in part because the chroniclers, more interested in manorial farmland, paid little attention to pastoral areas. Following Norman subjugation, monasteries returned to the North as missionaries sought to "settle
29280-458: The unitary authority areas of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire within the ceremonial county Lincolnshire . Other definitions use historic county boundaries, in which case the North is generally taken to comprise Cumberland , Northumberland, Westmorland , County Durham, Lancashire and Yorkshire , often supplemented by Cheshire. The boundary is sometimes drawn without reference to human borders, using geographic features such as
29463-467: The up-tempo beat of the stompers were also played at some venues, including the Ron Grainer Orchestra's instrumental "Theme From Joe 90" at Wigan Casino and the Just Brothers ' surf-guitar song, "Sliced Tomatoes" at Blackpool Mecca. As the scene developed in the mid and late 1970s, the more contemporary and rhythmically sophisticated sounds of disco and Philly Soul became accepted at certain venues following its adoption at Blackpool Mecca. This style
29646-427: The variety of English spoken by Poles in Manchester is distinct both from typical Polish-accented English and from Mancunian. At a local level, the diversity of immigrant communities means that some languages that are extremely rare in the country as a whole have strongholds in Northern towns: Bradford for instance has the largest proportion of Pashto speakers, while Manchester has most Cantonese speakers. During
29829-430: The video for the song features stereotypical Northern soul dancing; additionally, the track samples the famous soul drum break from James Brown 's " Funky Drummer ", performed by Clyde Stubblefield . In the book Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: the history of the DJ , the authors describe Northern soul as "built from failures", stating: "... Northern soul was the music made by hundreds of singers and bands who were copying
30012-411: The wall between art and real life, so that art would become a living experience in cafes or jazz clubs, and not remain the prerogative of galleries and museums. Many works of artists of the movement were created on the verge of various types of art . Artists wrote poetry and poets painted, something like this can describe the processes taking place within the framework of the movement. Performances were
30195-474: The way we had heard the word "beat" spoken on street corners on Times Square and in the Village , in other cities in the downtown city night of postwar America—beat, meaning down and out but full of intense conviction. We'd even heard old 1910 Daddy Hipsters of the streets speak the word that way, with a melancholy sneer. It never meant juvenile delinquents , it meant characters of a special spirituality who didn't gang up but were solitary Bartlebies staring out
30378-446: The weekend parties of four students. "Beat" came from underworld slang—the world of hustlers, drug addicts, and petty thieves—from which Allen Ginsberg and Kerouac sought inspiration. "Beat" was slang for "beaten down" or "downtrodden". However, to Kerouac and Ginsberg, it also had a spiritual connotation, as in " beatitude ". Other adjectives discussed by Holmes and Kerouac were "found" and "furtive". Kerouac felt he had identified (and
30561-478: The well-known owner of a San Francisco Art Gallery. Objecting to the term, Allen Ginsberg wrote to The New York Times to deplore "the foul word beatnik", commenting, "If beatniks and not illuminated Beat poets overrun this country, they will have been created not by Kerouac but by industries of mass communication which continue to brainwash man." In the vernacular of the period, "Beat" referred to Beat culture, attitude and literature; while "beatnik" referred to
30744-479: The word "beatnik" is traditionally ascribed to Herb Caen from his column in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958, where he wrote " Look magazine , preparing a picture spread on S.F.'s Beat Generation (oh, no, not AGAIN!), hosted a party in a No. Beach house for 50 Beatniks, and by the time word got around the sour grapevine, over 250 bearded cats and kits were on hand, slopping up Mike Cowles' free booze. They're only Beat, y'know, when it comes to work ..." It
30927-476: The word Beat as being to mean beatific...People began to call themselves beatniks, beats, jazzniks, bopniks, buggies, and finally, I was called the "avatar" of all this. In light of what he considered beat to mean and what beatnik had come to mean, Kerouac said to a reporter "I'm not a beatnik. I'm a Catholic", showing the reporter a painting of Pope Paul VI and saying "You know who painted that? Me." In her memoir Minor Characters , Joyce Johnson described how
31110-409: Was No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart . Both records were million-sellers in the US, but neither topped the pop or R&B charts. Invictus had two other gold records: Freda Payne's "Bring the Boys Home" and 8th Day's " She's Not Just Another Woman ", both in 1971. Northern soul reached the peak of its popularity in the mid- to late-1970s. At this time, there were soul clubs in virtually every major town in
31293-564: Was a Bleecker Street beatnik spoof of Kay Thompson 's Eloise series (1956–1959). In the 1960s comic book, the Justice League of America 's sidekick Snapper Carr was portrayed as a stereotypical beatnik, down to his lingo and clothes. The DC Comics character Jonny Double is portrayed as a beatnik. In San Francisco, Jerry and Estelle Cimino operate their Beat Museum , which began in 2003 in Monterey, California and moved to San Francisco in 2006. Ed "Big Daddy" Roth used fiberglass to build his Beatnik Bandit in 1960. Today, this car
31476-426: Was a product of the stereotypes of the 30s and 40s—though garbled—of a cross between a 1920s Greenwich Village bohemian artist and a Bop musician, whose visual image was completed by mixing in Daliesque paintings, a beret, a Vandyck beard , a turtleneck sweater, a pair of sandals, and set of bongo drums. A few authentic elements were added to the collective image: poets reading their poems, for example, but even this
31659-458: Was coined by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen in 1958, as a derogatory label for the followers of the Beat Generation , a group of influential writers and artists who emerged during the era of the Silent Generation 's maturing, from as early as 1946, to as late as 1963, but the subculture was at its most prevalent in the 1950s. This lifestyle of anti-consumerism may have been influenced by their generation living in extreme poverty in
31842-426: Was founded in 1484 by Richard III. The Council existed intermittently for the next two centuries – its final incarnation was created in the aftermath of the Pilgrimage of Grace and was chiefly an institution for providing order and dispensing justice. Northern England was a focal point for fighting during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms . The border counties were invaded by Scotland in the Second Bishops' War , and at
32025-575: Was influenced by the Northern soul scene. In 2000, Wigan Casino DJ Kev Roberts compiled The Northern Soul Top 500 , which was based on a survey of Northern soul fans. The top ten songs were: " Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) " by Frank Wilson , "Out on the Floor" by Dobie Gray , "You Didn't Say a Word" by Yvonne Baker , " The Snake " by Al Wilson , "Long After Tonight is Over" by Jimmy Radcliffe , "Seven Day Lover" by James Fountain, "You Don't Love Me" by Epitome of Sound, "Looking for You" by Garnet Mimms , "If That's What You Wanted" by Frankie Beverly &
32208-444: Was later published as "The Origins of the Beat Generation" ( Playboy , June 1959). In that article, Kerouac noted how his original beatific philosophy had been ignored amid maneuvers by several pundits, among them San Francisco newspaper columnist Herb Caen , to alter Kerouac's concept with jokes and jargon: I went one afternoon to the church of my childhood and had a vision of what I must have really meant with "Beat"...the vision of
32391-404: Was made Earl of Northumberland and kept the counties of Cumberland, Westmorland and Northumbria, as well as part of Lancashire. These reverted to English control in 1157, establishing for the most part the modern England–Scotland border. The region also saw violence during The Great Raid of 1322 when Robert the Bruce invaded and raided the whole of Northern England. There was also the Wars of
32574-408: Was made unintelligible by making all of the poets speak in some kind of phony Bop idiom. The consequence is, that even though we may know now that these images do not accurately reflect the reality of the Beat movement, we still subconsciously look for them when we look back to the 50s. We have not even yet completely escaped the visual imagery that has been so insistently forced upon us. The origin of
32757-399: Was originally the B-side of "A Satisfied Mind" (UK No. 32, August 1972), Robert Knight 's " Love on a Mountain Top " recorded in 1968 (UK No. 10, November 1973) and R. Dean Taylor 's " There's a Ghost in My House " from 1967 (UK No. 3, May 1974). The Northern soul scene also spawned lesser chart hits, including Al Wilson 's 1968 cut " The Snake " (UK No. 41 in 1975), Dobie Gray 's " Out on
32940-529: Was run by the soul music collector Dave Godin . It was first publicly used in Godin's weekly column in Blues & Soul magazine in June 1970. In a 2002 interview with Chris Hunt of Mojo magazine, Godin said he had first come up with the term in 1968, to help employees at Soul City differentiate the more modern funkier sounds from the smoother. Godin referred to the latter's requests as "Northern soul": I had started to notice that northern football fans who were in London to follow their team were coming into
33123-410: Was subject to a trademark dispute in the UK after a bag retailer in Manchester tried to register the logo. The IPO refused the trademark, considering it generic. The ruling was unusual as it considered not just the usage from other manufacturers, but also its wide usage by members of the public to be relevant. In 2007, Andrew Wilson (lecturer in criminology at the University of Sheffield ) published
33306-576: Was the embodiment of) a new trend analogous to the influential Lost Generation . In "Aftermath: The Philosophy of the Beat Generation", Kerouac criticized what he saw as a distortion of his visionary, spiritual ideas: The Beat Generation, that was a vision that we had, John Clellon Holmes and I, and Allen Ginsberg in an even wilder way, in the late Forties, of a generation of crazy, illuminated hipsters suddenly rising and roaming America, serious, bumming and hitchhiking everywhere, ragged, beatific, beautiful in an ugly graceful new way—a vision gleaned from
33489-440: Was the northernmost border of the Roman Empire . Although the Romans invaded modern-day Northumberland and part of Scotland beyond it, they never succeeded in conquering the reaches of Britain beyond the River Tyne . After the end of Roman rule in Britain and the arrival of the Angles , Yr Hen Ogledd (the "Old North") was divided into rival kingdoms, Bernicia , Deira , Rheged and Elmet . Bernicia covered lands north of
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