The Northern Soul Scene

Nominated for the 2020 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research

The northern soul scene is a dance-based music culture that originated in the English North and Midlands in the early 1970s. It still thrives today with a mix of sixty-year-olds and several generations of new converts, and its celebration of 1960s soul has an international following.

This co-produced book brings together newly commissioned essays together with pivotal earlier articles that have defined the field so far. These chapters are interspersed with key journalistic articles, evocative photographs, and interviews with the directors of northern soul-themed films. This anthology is the first to provide a wide variety of perspectives on the history and contemporary nature of the scene, and creates a forum for vibrant dialogue and debate amongst academic researchers, students and those immersed in the scene. Representations of the scene from different media, and different historical locations, are juxtaposed to construct a rich and diverse statement about the music, people, places and practices that constitute the northern soul scene in the UK and beyond.