“The queue was an absolute fucker”: The night a Motown hero made a pilgrimage to Wigan Casino
Back in the 1960s, Motown’s musical empire rose from its humble origins in the heart of Detroit to become a global phenomenon, but few places took those soulful sounds to heart with the same lasting intensity as England’s industrial heartland, where the rhythms of Motown and Motown-inspired soul records continued beating well into the 1970s, under the name of northern soul.
It was the first generation of mods that introduced Motown’s infectious sound to the trendy nightclubs and pirate airwaves of Britain during the mid-1960s, albeit with a little help from colossal stars like Dusty Springfield and The Beatles. However, when the rest of the music world moved on to more modern climbs, with the advent of 1970s funk and, eventually, disco, the raw soul that once typified Motown had a second life on the dancefloors of the northern soul scene, where the likes of Edwin Starr were worshipped as soul gods.
Although Starr’s Motown-era output might have been deemed too mainstream or ‘overplayed’ by the northern soul hardcore, his earlier material, recorded with Ric-Tic – a label that worried Berry Gordy enough for him to buy it and its roster back in 1968 – formed a core part of the northern soul landscape.
From ‘Agent Double-O Soul’, apparently a favourite of John Lennon’s, to ‘Back Street’, which seemed almost tailor-made for the northern scene, Starr’s voice regularly boomed over the speakers of Wigan Casino during its 1970s heyday.
While, in its initial stages at least, the northern soul scene remained a completely unknown, impossibly niche scene to anybody outside of England’s northern territories, word quickly started to get out about this incredible scene revolutionising youth music culture.
Motown itself began issuing reissues of northern soul favourites during the early 1970s, and Edwin Starr – at the time struggling to match the success of his number-one single ‘War’ – saw an opportunity. Attempting to capitalise on his rising success in the northern soul scene, Starr planned a tour of the UK, centring around the ultimate Mecca of the movement: Wigan Casino.
In his 1996 northern soul memoir Nightshift, Casino regular Pete McKenna recalled, “The night Edwin Starr came to the Casino was one of the best experiences anyone who was a member of the club could have had.”
“The queue that night was an absolute fucker. When opening time came, we literally had to be pulled in by the bouncers.”
Starr performed at the Casino a few times over the course of its tenure, blending his repertoire of cult northern soul classics with big-hitters like ‘Twenty-Five Miles’ and ‘War. Exact dates are a source of some debate within the scene, with some claiming he performed in the club as early as 1974. However, if McKenna’s recollection is anything to go by, the Motown hero put on some unforgettable shows in that dilapidated old dancehall in the arse-end of Lancashire.
Eventually, in fact, Starr decided to up sticks and relocate to England on a permanent basis – either during the late 1970s or early 1980s, again specific details are disputed – eventually settling in Nottingham. Detroit might have been the hub of Motown’s soul empire back in the 1960s, but as far as Edwin Starr was concerned, the Motor City had nothing on the revolutionary magic of Wigan Casino.
