Reply With QuoteWell, Biddu offered "Northern Dancer" in his 1st album and very good it was, too, wasn't it?
Indie Release [Level 4]
I am by no means an expert on Northern Soul; in fact, I've just begun to explore it in the last year or so...yet I see a resemblance between this (wonderful) style of music and the early cusp of disco. These are my thoughts:
Northern Soul was made for DANCING, had to be bouncy and beaty...Disco: same.
Northern Soul was geared toward a specific crowd: working/disenfranchised youth(?) who wanted an environment to party to forget life and enjoy freedom..Disco: disenfranchised blacks/gays/hispanics who wanted the same thing.
Northern Soul playlists consisted of obscure songs sung by obscure (session) singers, generally non-hits everywhere else...Disco: same.
Northern Soul djs went out of their way to unearth the latest classic tune for their crowd; in turn, the dancers did the same in order to add to their collection of tunes they owned... Disco: same thing.
Northern Soul seemed to peter out when it started to become commercial; it lost that "panache", if you will (or the "new" songs became scarcer)...Disco: same. In fact I think Disco became TOO TOO MUCH commercial and exclusive (54, anyone?) so it imploded aboveground and wisely went undergound to re-invent itself and then branch out to other forms of music.
Northern Soul scene was drug-fuelled (to enhance the experience/ stamina for dancing all night)...Disco:same.
Disco may be classified as a continuation of Northern Soul, albeit occurring in different continents (Europe/North America). And I also find similarities in sound between Northern Soul and early proto-disco: 4-4 beats, strings, repetitive choruses, breaks, should be fast (120 bpm on up).
whattya think?
Platinum Record [Level 8]
Well, Biddu offered "Northern Dancer" in his 1st album and very good it was, too, wasn't it?
Gold Record [Level 7]
erm nope :oOriginally Written by JussiK
Indie Release [Level 4]
hmmmm... interesting. When you say Northern Soul are you talking about say Sound of Philadelphia artists or who? Care to clarify?
Chart Hit [Level 6]
Its Music played in The Northern clubs of the UK. Most of the music played was relativley unknown in the UK and released on small indie label in the US. Discodisk is the man with the info!
No Longer Charting
Just found this old thread.... worth reviving I think ?
Looking at some of the Disco 12" s for sale that come up in the advertising on this site, I'd say the parallels between the two are growing even closer.
The main difference these days is that a very vocal and disproportionately loud hardcore section of Northern Soul crowd are unwilling to accept anything new, or anything that falls out of what their idea of 'Northern Soul' is.
The term 'Northern Soul' now encompasses a very disperate selection of styles enjoyed by many, from early 60's Rn' B records to more recent 'House' styled tracks and there's a huge dancefloor popularity for some records that would rightly be termed 'Disco' records by many of us here and in fact are termed the same by some of those on the Northern Scene - but as a put down !
Underground Hit [Level 5]
.. even back in 1974 northern soul fans were falling out with each other over the deffinition of this music .. at that time Ian Levine was spinning modern soul records at Blackpool Mecca .. and calling it northern soul .. so the northern soul scene quickly divided into 2 very distinct camps .. firstly the classic 60's uptempo rarities .. & then the uptempo modern dancers .. so today most big northern events will have a classics room & also a modern room (although the very deffinition of modern now seems stuck in about 1974) .. so many of the early disco classics are also modern northern monsters .. Four Below Zero "My baby's got e.s.p." / Brainstorm "Lovin' is really my game" / Cameo "Find my way" / Eddie Holman "This will be a night to remember" / Moment of Truth "Lovin' you is killing me" / The T.N.J.'s "Don't forget about me" .. all well established tunes at the modern end of the northern scene .. and of course classic disco tunes too .. Ian Levine started his recording career around 1974 making proto-northern pop records to cash in on the British public interest in northern soul at that time .. Evelyn Thomas "Weak spot" and L J Reynolds "Your magic put a spell on me" started life as modern northern records, then became U.K. pop hits .. and soon got picked up by those very smart U.S. club disco dj's (always looking for a new dancefloor hit) where they became early disco classics .. providing a very strong link between northern soul & disco .. which is kinda ironic, when you consider that northern soul records were originally recorded by Americans for Americans to dance to .. the wheel had finally come full-circle .. and a couple of years later, when disco reached a world-wide audience, Ian Levine was producing some of the very best examples of this new dance sound .. Barbera Pennington "24 hours a day" and James Wells "My claim to fame" being two of the finest disco records ever recorded .. whilst in the USA Simon Soussan was copying this same zingy uptempo northern sound for U.S. dancefloors with his Simon Orchestra .. and the connection between U.K. & U.S. dancefloors doesn't end there .. Jimmy Ruffin's classic disco dancefloor smash "Tell me what you want" was actually overlooked by American radio stations & dancefloors on first release .. Only when the track was enormously popular on British dancefloors did the U.S. dj's sit up & take notice .. then there was a sudden scramble for import copies, with New York dj's forced to fight each other for British 45 pressings ..
Platinum Record [Level 8]
Very cool information. That track is one of my favourite early Philly dance numbers. By the way, if you really like the track, there is a 7 minute plus mix on the double CD compilation called Disco Gold (from Universal, not to be confused with the Tom Moulton '75 LP). This was probably dug out of the vaults and compiled by a recent person because the original track was a 3 minute single only.
Disco Funk
Underground Hit [Level 5]
.. thanks, I see the previously unissued extended mix of "Tell me what you want" featured on the double CD "Disco Gold" is a Tom Moulton remix .. I presume he did the remix back in 1974 .. although Tom is still remixing stuff today .. this will make a good topic for a new thread .. I should call it Tom Moulton disco God ..
Platinum Record [Level 8]
I couldn't find the thread I was looking for talking about earliest examples of disco, so I'm using this one since it was browsing through northern soul that I came across this nice little track
It's a sweet philly dancer from 1972(!) produced by Peter De Angelis on GSF. Sounds like a really good example of an early disco and perhaps more ammunition in my assertion that Philadelphia was where true disco was born. Blanch Carter would later add an 'e' to her first name and record another philly single, this time with Jacques Morali, who also used MFSB, on her 1975 single My Man/Rain. Ironically, that Peter DeAngelis track sounds kind of like the trademark sound Richie Rome would later use on tracks like that later Blanche Carter single.
By the way, I also posted this before, De Angelis also produced this Eddie Holman dance number made in philly in 1972, which was also released on GSF, another example of the roots of disco in Philadelphia.
Disco Funk
Indie Release [Level 4]
Wow! I love that Eddie Holman track! Don't know that I'd call it a "dancer" (just slightly), but it's definitely got that classic early-Philly sound. Beautiful.
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