вЂњWeвЂ™d decided that there were records that were as good, if not better, then the Northern Soul records we were playing at the time. вЂњFrom вЂ™73 onwards, the music changed in America and it really gave us a fantastic armoury of records to play,вЂќ Colin Curtis says. There, DJs Ian Levine and Colin Curtis had other ideas. Yet if they ventured to the Highland Room at the Blackpool Mecca, another legendary Northern Soul venue, their stomping favourites would not always get an airing. If they visited the Wigan Casino to hear Kev Roberts or Richard Searling play, thatвЂ™s exactly what they got. They wanted to hear DJs playing obscure, hard-to-find soul records вЂ“ mostly from in and around Detroit вЂ“ that boasted a stomping backbeat. For a significant number of white, working class men who populated вЂњall-nightersвЂќ at the world famous Wigan Casino, the Winter Gardens in Cleethorpes and other smaller venues dotted across the north of England, Northern Soul would always be very narrowly defined as a style. To compound these blows, a schism was beginning to open up between some of the sceneвЂ™s leading DJs and a portion of the paying public. The former was a victim of BritainвЂ™s then archaic licensing laws, while the latter had been shut down by police following histrionic media coverage of the amphetamines-fuelled antics of some of its dancers. The patience of its obsessive disciples was first tested by the closure of two of its most iconic venues, ManchesterвЂ™s pioneering Twisted Wheel Club and the Golden Torch in Stoke.

This, then, is the previously untold story of BritainвЂ™s first underground dance music boom.Д«y the summer of 1975, the previously united Northern Soul scene was in the midst of an identity crisis.

It begins in the North West of England during the most fractious period in the Northern Soul story, shifts to London and the South East, and then returns to its northern heartlands on the eve of the rave revolution. It is a story in three distinctive parts, linked by a handful of groundbreaking DJs and promoters. And, with little fanfare, these вЂњall-dayersвЂќ turned dance music from a niche interest into something embraced by those in both the suburbs and inner cities, laying the foundations for all that followed. Over the course of 11 years, the all-dayer scene gave Britain the cult of the DJ, the UKвЂ™s first dedicated dance music festival and served as a breeding ground for future pioneers of homegrown dance music. This was the era of the soul all-dayer sizeable events that initially attracted Northern Soul purists but would eventually draw in dancers from across the nation, often from very different social backgrounds. Yet it was during this decade that the roots of BritainвЂ™s underground dance music culture were strengthening at a rapid pace. The problem with this story is that it doesnвЂ™t mention what came between the high point of Northern Soul and the mass movement of the late 1980s that cemented dance musicвЂ™s place in the hearts of the British public.

It was during this period that dance music became part of the fabric of British culture, in the process sparking the rise of the вЂњsuperstar DJ,вЂќ colossal events and a boom in music production that continues to this day.

The story then moves on to the rise of house music, ecstasy culture and the rave movement at the tail end of the 1980s. The initial focus naturally falls on the Northern Soul scene of the late вЂ™60s and early вЂ™70s, which effectively created the blueprint for modern club culture by promoting the idea of dancing all night to obscure music played by DJs whose reputation was built on their ability to champion records their rivals didnвЂ™t own. When the story of how Britain fell in love with underground club culture is told, it tends to follow a familiar narrative.

Greg brown bleep calls