‘Don’t Bother Me’: the only northern soul song to top the charts
Chart success isn’t everything within the music world. In terms of the northern soul scene, in fact, chart success is something to be avoided. A core principle of that enigmatic scene, after all, was that the records being spun at Wigan Casino or the Twisted Wheel were as obscure and unheard-of as possible – a far cry from the glamour of primetime Top of the Pops television.
Unlike virtually every other music scene in early 1970s England, northern soul totally rejected the power of the singles charts and the BBC’s music programming. The job of a northern soul DJ was not to spin whatever bubblegum pop single was making its way up the charts that week, but rather to seek out impossibly obscure American soul records, released years prior, that nobody else in the north of England could have possibly encountered before. It was an act of utter defiance against the mainstream.
Inevitably, though, when mass audiences finally cottoned on to this blossoming new music scene in the provincial towns of northern England, northern soul became mainstream itself – or, at the very least, it boasted some degree of power when it came to the musical mainstream.
At the peak of Wigan Casino’s notoriety, after the BBC had run a television documentary about this strange underground dance scene, the singles charts suddenly became flush with rather cringeworthy northern soul novelty acts, like Wigan’s Chosen Few or Wigan’s Ovation.
Years prior, though, record labels had already caught wind of the blossoming northern soul scene at Manchester’s Twisted Wheel, years before Wigan hosted its first all-nighter. Overnight, a litany of American soul labels realised what a fortuitous opportunity had presented itself: thousands of kids across the Atlantic were paying top money for records released in small quantities during the 1960s, so why not reissue those singles?
Motown, for instance, unleashed a deluge of reissued singles during the early 1970s, capitalising on names that had been made legendary by the northern soul scene, even if they were originally considered failures at Hitsville USA. What’s more, those reissued singles regularly made it into the mainstream pop charts of the UK, spurred on by the northern scene and the demand the labels were meeting.
It was that demand that, in 1971, prompted ABC subsidiary Probe Records to reissue a non-hit from the label’s back catalogue, in The Tams’ ‘Hey Girl Don’t Bother Me’. Originally released in 1964 to very little fanfare, the single soon made its way into the record boxes of early northern soul DJs, where it quickly became a floor-filling favourite. Such was the extent of its popularity, in fact, that when Probe reissued the single in 1971, it sold enough to reach the top of the UK singles charts.
Replacing Diana Ross at the top spot, and staying there for an impressive three weeks before being deposed by Rod Stewart, The Tams’ newfound popularity came as a particular shock to the band itself, who had all but retired when they learned of their northern soul stardom.
Multiple Top of the Pops appearances followed, and the northern soul scene had officially produced its first number-one single, much to the chagrin of the purists populating the Twisted Wheel’s dancefloor week after week.
