Revisiting the ‘90s Northern Soul Explosion in the UK

Com­ing of age in Bury, Lan­cashire, pho­tog­ra­ph­er Elaine Con­stan­tine fell in love with North­ern Soul after vis­it­ing a youth club in 1976. She remem­bers the kids weren’t real­ly feel­ing the cheesy and pre­dictable dance tracks until the DJ start­ed play­ing ​“You’re Ready Now” by Frankie Valli.

“All these cool kids came out of the shad­ows and were spin­ning and doing back drops,” Con­stan­tine remem­bers. ​“They had this face of con­vic­tion. No fear. They were just locked into the track. It blew my mind.”

In that moment, Con­stan­tine was hooked on North­ern Soul, an intox­i­cat­ing blend of British mod style and uptem­po Black Amer­i­can soul music that emerged dur­ing the late 1960s in night­clubs and dance­halls across the north like Wigan Casi­no, Black­pool Mec­ca, and Gold­en Torch. 

Draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from tour­ing artists like Jack­ie Wil­son and Lit­tle Antho­ny and the Impe­ri­als, rev­ellers brought their high fly­ing ath­let­ic chore­og­ra­phy to the dance floor. The elec­tric, infec­tious ener­gy proved a trans­for­ma­tive moment for Con­stan­tine, who too want­ed to belong. 

As a teen she start­ed hit­ting the clubs, devel­op­ing an eye for dis­tinc­tive details that she would lat­er cap­ture as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er. Inspired by Chris Killip’s book In Fla­grante, Con­stan­tine set off to carve a path all her own, chron­i­cling the UK nightlife scene for youth cul­ture mag­a­zines like The Face and i‑D dur­ing the 1990s.

“I was one of the ​‘go to’ shoot­ers to cov­er all the lat­est clubs that were spring­ing up in that ear­ly ​‘90s peri­od,” Con­stan­tine says. ​“Some of the clubs were bril­liant in terms of vibes and pun­ters but the music couldn’t beat what I had heard on the North­ern scene.”

One Sat­ur­day night in 1993, Con­stan­tine hit up London’s leg­endary 100 club, curi­ous to see how North­ern Soul scene evolved. Cam­era in hand, she tried to get a few shots but felt out of sync. Then Lester Tipton’s ​“This Won’t Change” came over the speak­ers, wel­com­ing her home again. She dashed her cam­era bag under a chair and got lost on the dance floor.

“That night it all start­ed for me again,” Con­stan­tine says. Embrac­ing the cul­ture as a par­tic­i­pant rather than ​“impar­tial” observ­er, she began doc­u­ment­ing the scene, craft­ing a vibrant por­trait of com­mu­ni­ty col­lect­ed in the new book, North­ern Soul 1993 – 1996 (Café Roy­al Books).

While oth­er sub­cul­tures fad­ed away over the years, North­ern Soul held strong, con­tin­u­ous­ly rein­vent­ing itself through the time­less art of crate dig­ging. By the ​‘90s, Con­stan­tine explains, the scene had gone fur­ther under­ground and become more hard­core than ever before. ​“What was left was a group of peo­ple with a more dis­cern­ing atti­tude, acer­bic sense of humor, an seem­ing­ly even more hooked on vinyl than ever before,” she says.

“I have so many great mem­o­ries but they blend into many nights out and it’s dif­fi­cult to sep­a­rate but one springs to mind. A bloke was wear­ing slip­pers on the dance floor. He had sneaked out of the house, but couldn’t get his shoes with­out his wife find­ing out.”

North­ern Soul 1993 – 1996 is out not on Café Roy­al Books. 

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