The northern soul classics covered by The Jam in 1982
Ironically, for a scene that has always coveted the most obscure, forgotten, and otherwise unknown soul records to ever be pressed onto vinyl, northern soul has produced its fair share of hit singles over the years. Not only have various reissued Casino floorfillers rocketed up the charts since the mid-1970s, but cover versions of northern soul classics also tend to do well within the musical mainstream.
Most famously, of course, Soft Cell topped the singles charts back in 1981 with their synth-pop reimagining of Gloria Jones’ ‘Tainted Love’, which had long since been a floor-filler on the northern soul circuit. Marc Almond and Andy Bell weren’t the only budding musicians of the time to find inspiration in that scene, though.
As well as godawful northern soul novelty songs like ‘Footsee’ by Wigan’s Chosen Few, a number of groups emerged during the golden age of the scene that took some sonic inspiration from the realm of obscure soul singles, amphetamines, and old dancefloors.
One such group was The Jam, who owed a lot of their style and sound to the mod subculture of the 1960s, which also formed the spiritual origins of the northern soul scene. Although the early days of the outfit were marked by an anarchic, punk-adjacent energy, spurred on by their many gigs at The Roxy Club, as The Jam progressed, Paul Weller’s songwriting inspiration began to lean much more into the realm of soul.
On the US version of 1979’s Setting Sons, for example, the band recorded a blistering cover of the Martha Reeves Motown classic ‘Heatwave’, and the extent of those soulful influences only become more pronounced as the group marched on into the 1980s. The magnum opus of Weller’s blossoming interest in northern soul, in fact, arrived with ‘Beat Surrender’, The Jam’s swansong single.
By the time 1982 rolled around, a combination of burn-out, inescapable expectations, musical differences, and a desire for Weller to start something new spelt the end of The Jam, and ‘Beat Surrender’ provided a certain glimpse of what was to come next for ‘The Modfather’. In addition to the single itself being indebted to the inspiration of Motown, northern soul, and the infallible songwriting stylings of Holland-Dozier-Holland, the B-side laid bare Weller’s adoration for northern soul.
On certain copies of the single, the B-side ‘Shopping’ was supported by three cover songs, seeing The Jam take on ‘Stoned Out of My Mind’ by Chicago R&B heroes The Chi-Lites, Curtis Mayfield’s floor-filling ‘Move On Up’, and ‘War’ by the northern soul icon that is Edwin Starr.
Each of these three covers, while perhaps not as deeply entrenched in the northern soul scene as ‘Tainted Love’, evoked Paul Weller’s increased debt to the inspiration of that sweaty, speed-riddled scene.
Owing to that adoration for northern soul, each of those three covers marks some underrated highlights from the later days of The Jam. Perhaps more importantly, though, they predicted the kind of sound that Paul Weller would continue to pursue during his days with The Style Council – a group that never made any effort to hide their northern soul origins.
