The Miami charity shop that unknowingly gave northern soul its soundtrack: “15 cents each”
Northern soul is among the most enigmatic music scenes to ever capture the attention of Britain’s youth, and the prevailing question that it conjures up is, how on Earth did thousands of young people in the north of England get their hands on impossibly obscure, flopped American soul records?
In the case of the Blackpool Mecca, at least, it was all down to a family holiday and a charity shop in Miami. Back in the 1960s, when soul music first began dominating the Hit Parade of its native United States, the sound struggled to traverse the Atlantic Ocean. It wasn’t until 1965, in fact, that Motown Records – whose soul empire was unparalleled in the US – scored their first hit in the UK. It should go without saying, then, that the vast majority of the obscure, failed soul singles that were coveted by the early northern soul scene were never even released in Britain, nevermind climbing the singles charts.
As far back as the days of Manchester’s Twisted Wheel, English DJs travelled to America to source those soul records first-hand, digging through basements and cellars in search of the next big northern soul smash. In the US, after all, these records were unwanted, cast into the depths of obscurity for the crime of not being nationwide hits. For a budding young DJ like Ian Levine, therefore, America was most definitely calling.
During a family holiday to Miami in 1973, Levine abstained from poolside loungers and inevitable sunburn, instead spending the holiday seeking out unwanted American soul records. Eventually, he stumbled upon the greatest northern soul haul of all time in the basement of a local charity shop.
“I went to Miami and bought 4000 records from Goodwill,” the DJ recalled, in the new documentary Northern Soul: Still Burning.
“They had half a million records, sleeveless, donations from radio stations which had given them so that they could make money for the homeless, so they were 15 cents each, so I bought 4000 of them,” he shared.
“The greatest northern soul haul of all time.”
Ian Levine
Once those 4000 sleeveless, unknown records had made it back to Levine’s home in the north of England, after some difficulty in getting the plane to take off with all the added weight, they formed the basis for his DJ sets at the Blackpool Mecca – a legendary northern soul venue and main competition for the crown later held by Wigan Casino’s all-nighters.
Levine wasn’t the only northern soul DJ to return from the States with suitcases full of previously unheard singles, but nobody else ever brought back the same volume or quality of records. His Miami haul essentially formed the basis for the entirety of the northern soul scene at that time, introducing a plethora of now-beloved classics and changing the sonic landscape of the scene forevermore.
Without that charity shop spending spree, the northern soul scene would be without many of its iconic sounds, and there is a very real possibility that the movement would have dried up within a few years, given the limited nature of its pool of records prior to that haul. Although they didn’t know it at the time, that Goodwill shop in Miami with its 15-cent records essentially spurred on the golden age of northern soul throughout the 1970s and beyond.
