The DJs
The people who kept these records moving, and the ones playing them now. Britain first, then America, which is the order the music travelled in.
What this page is
A reading list, not a line-up. Nobody here is booked to play a New England Northern Soul night, and none of them has been approached. These are the DJs, clubs and archivists worth following if you want to understand the scene, and the people whose work this club is built on top of. Anyone who does end up behind our decks will be announced on Soul Nights, with a date attached.
Where It Was Kept Alive
Richard Searling
Soul Source. Wigan Casino resident, and the DJ who broke more of these records than anyone alive.
Kev Roberts
Wigan Casino DJ, compiler of the Northern Soul Top 500, and the reason this site has a canon to argue with.
Ady Croasdell
Ace Records and the 100 Club. Runs the Kent imprint, which is where most of the reissues you own came from.
Colin Curtis
Blackpool Mecca with Ian Levine. Pushed the scene forward when others wanted it frozen.
Ian Levine
Blackpool Mecca. Flew to America for the records nobody else had, then wrote and produced his own when the supply ran dry. The scene argued with him for fifty years and played his discoveries anyway.
Levanna McLean
Northern Soul Girl. Took the dancing out of the clubs and onto the street, and brought a generation in with it.
Lewis Henderson
Deptford Northern Soul Club. Proof the scene is still recruiting people who were born long after Wigan closed.
Eve Arslett
DJ Jackie Brown. Bristol Soul Club.
Where It Came Home
Jonathan Toubin
New York Night Train. Fills rooms in New York with obscure soul 45s and has done for years.
Phast Phreddie & Lady Dawn
Subway Soul Club. Ran monthly in New York for around a decade and now favour two or three larger parties a year.
Natasha Diggs
Soul in the Horn. Soul, funk and rare groove, and one of the best selectors working in the city.
Soulelujah
Ty Jesso. Cambridge, Massachusetts. All-vinyl soul collective running since 2003, monthly, third Saturday.
Portraits and
Interviews
Photographs and short interviews go in next, one at a time. If you DJ this music anywhere between Boston and New Jersey and you are not on this page, that is an oversight rather than a judgement.