Most successful British Northern Soul artists?

**PhyllisHyman** · July 14th, 2007, 11:24 AM

Which British artists were successful on the NS scene? I'm struggling to think of any as they all seem to be American (but that might be because I don't know a huge amount about Northeren Soul)

**SandraDee** · July 14th, 2007, 08:31 PM

A British group that had a hit with a northern soul-style track, 'Skiing In The Snow' (a cover version), was Wigan's Ovation. I don't think it was too well received by alot of hardcore NS fans as it was seen as cashing in on the Wigan Casino success but it reached no.12 in the pop charts in '75.:icon_eek: They went on to have 2 more minor hits too! The whole NS scene was about playing rare US dance tracks from the past so it's very unlikely that NS acts would originate from anywhere other than the US really.

Discodisk is a better person to answer your question but I haven't seen him here for a while.

**Simon White** · July 15th, 2007, 03:02 AM

Difficult one....if we can only talk British Artists and British recordings, then it's a bit limited I suppose...then we have to decide what 'successful' means...because 'success' might be defined in different ways in Northern Soul terms and chart success is defintely a no no !

The Northern crowd would go nuts at the suggestion of 'Wigans Ovation' as Northern Soul artist...although of course Sandra's right in a lot of ways. But they have no credibility with the Northern crowd at all.

But Dusty Springfield had a couple of popular records on the Northern Scene, Lorraine Silver had a great and very popular track 'Lost Summer Love', Frankie And Johnny's 'I'll Hold You' is still a dancefloor filler and is expensive to buy, Nosmo King had a big hit with 'Goodbye Nothing To Say' but like Wigans Ovation it has no credibility at all (I love it personally !) Helen Shapiro has a great track 'Stop And You'll Become Aware', Paula Parfitt has 'Love Is Wonderful'.....there are plenty more...the most bizzare is 'Tears Of Joy' by Ray Merrell who was an Irish showband type singer. But in general all these records are really just danceable pop records.

Jimmy James had some great stuff and I think has to be the most credible.