Alan Byron's documentary 'Northern Soul: Still Burning' offers an absorbing celebration of the northern soul scene that thrived from the late 1960s to the end of the 1970s. Centred on the Wigan Casino and its amphetamine-fuelled all-nighters, the film paints a passionate portrait of a unique cultural moment and its obsessive, high-kicking fans.
The film explores a fascinating, vernacular youth movement that was a regional open secret: a club culture, zine culture, and music-and-fashion culture that sustained itself without any svengali figure from London. Northern soul fans were passionate about thumpingly sensual mid-60s American soul, keeping it alive on all-night dancefloors with spectacular spins and drops, while the mainstream music business focused on disco, MOR rock, glam, or heavy metal.
DJs would travel to the US to search through discarded 7-inch vinyl from Motown and radio stations, bringing back rare tracks to northern English clubs. The principal venue was the Wigan Casino, which hosted legendary all-nighters from 2am to 8am, attracting soul fans from miles around. Licensing laws meant only Coca-Cola was served, but dancers took amphetamine, a part of the scene that has only recently been fully acknowledged, though the film does not delve deeply into this aspect.
The scene continued through the 1970s, largely ignored by southern cultural gatekeepers, until documentarist Tony Palmer made 'The Wigan Casino' for Granada TV's 'This England' strand. This outsider incursion was resented at the time but is now treasured as a unique archive record. The film highlights how northern soul survived under the media-cultural radar and resists larger interpretive analysis; it was not overtly political like punk or reggae, and there is no consensus on the status of its consumers, with many recalling having good jobs and apprenticeships.
Commentator Paul Mason suggests there was something homoerotic in the male atmosphere, but no first-hand experiences are shared. The Wigan Casino building's lease was terminated by the council at the end of the 1970s, and the building mysteriously burned down just as tenants might have disputed the decision. Northern soul is clearly the godfather of the 1990s club and rave scenes, but the film leaves a question: what did the American acts themselves think of it, and were they ever invited to play live at the Wigan Casino?
