Northern Soul Season: The Twisted Wheel, The Shirelles and The Incredibles

Bob Stanley on the legendary Twisted Wheel all nighters and the birth of Northern Soul...

SOTS' northern soul focus this week falls on records played at the Twisted Wheel, Manchester's legendary club which ran from 1963 to 1971. Soul music writer and record dealer Dave Godin had noticed that devotees of the Twisted Wheel bought records from him which had a specific sound; he labelled one box of his 45s "northern soul", and a genre was born.

The club's reputation for obscure, uptempo soul was down to DJs like Roger Eagle, a magnetic character who would later go on to birth a completely different scene when he opened Eric's club in Liverpool in the late seventies, helping to launch careers of Echo & the Bunnymen, Holly Johnson and Julian Cope. But in the sixties he played singles that are now standards of the northern scene: Jamo Thomas's I Spy For The FBI; the Packers' Hole In The Wall; and the Shades of Blue's sweet and delicate Oh How Happy.

The Shirelles' Look What You've Done To My Heart would have been played as a new single at the Twisted Wheel in 1969. Other obscurities from the back catalogue of the sixties' most successful girl group would be picked up by northern DJs over the years: 1967's brass-led Last Minute Miracle had a breakneck tempo that suited the floor at Wigan Casino; Shades Of Blue (nothing to do with the Oh How Happy singers) was a gorgeous, melancholy midtempo ballad; and the peculiarly titled His Lips Get In The Way had the requisite slow swing and "chacka chack" beat for the the requisite 'slow swing' that dancers loved in Belgium's Popcorn clubs (girl group fans will know there was a fuller, faster version by Tanya Day which is equally good).

Another big Wheel hit, the Incredibles' There's Nothing Else To Say, was a shameless cash-in on the Four Tops' Reach Out I'll Be There, with galloping drums and piccolos to the fore, but it turned out they were no bandwagon jumpers. Dave Godin rescued their ballad Standing Here Crying - as intense as anything sung by Levi Stubbs - for his Deep Soul Treasures compilation, which is possibly the greatest soul collection of them all (though not recommended for budding northern DJs given its largely funereal pace).

Despite having hosted live sets from the likes of Ben E King, Lou Christie, Jimmy Ruffin, Junior Walker and Edwin Starr, The Twisted Wheel closed in 1971, thanks to a new local by law which prevented clubs from staying open more than two hours past midnight which meant its 'all-nighter' status was wrecked. Its Whitworth Street premises became home to a new Twisted Wheel in 2002. Sadly, the building was demolished in 2012, but hundreds of northern soul nights around the world still remain in the Twisted Wheel's debt.