'It was everything to me': Memories of the Twisted Wheel – the nightclub which didn't sell booze but which became the 'birthplace of Northern Soul' by Chris Slater in the Manchester Evening News

 

A new book chronicles the music and the DJs which saw the club forge its own sound.

"It was very basic inside, badly lit with just plain painted walls." On the face of it, the venue which a then teenage Rob McKeever first walked into in 1969 wasn't much to write home about. Yet the only reason he was here was that tales from inside had spread like wildfire across the country, seeing visitors flock to it.

And like so many before him, Rob soon found out that this was no ordinary nightclub. For this dark, sweaty, basement club close to Piccadilly Station had become the epicentre of a whole new music scene and its name - The Twisted Wheel – still resonates today.

Now, a new book has chronicled how it became the 'birthplace of Northern Soul.'

Opened by brothers Jack, Phillip and Ivor Abadi, the coffee bar and dance club opened in January 1963 and began life as a Blues and R&B venue. It was situated on Brazenose Street, which runs between Albert Square and Deansgate.

However it was when it moved to new premises, at number 6 Whitworth Street, in September 1965, that it began to move in a new musical direction and its reputation became firmly established.

The fact it did not serve alcohol meant its opening times were not restricted by alcohol licensing laws. And the club's Saturday all-nighters, which would start around 11pm and finish around 7:30am the following morning, became the stuff of legend.

Rob, now aged 69, from Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, made his first pilgrimage as an 18-year-old, when the club was in its heyday. "I heard about it through word of mouth really, by all the lads who used to go and tell you how amazing it was," he says.

Upstairs was a coffee bar where people went for a drink, a chat and to sell and swap records. Whilst downstairs was a series of three rooms with the music piped into each. One was a concert room where some household names were among those to grace the tiny stage.

The Spencer Davis Group headlined Whitworth Street's grand opening and Ike and Tina Turner, Jimmy Ruffin, Edwin Starr and Ben E. King were among those to to perform to crowds who packed a venue which only held a couple of hundred people.

"The first time I went was September 1969. Like a lot of people who came I didn't tell my parents, I told them I was staying at my mates. "Coming from a small town like Barrow to the big city, it was really exciting. It did frighten the life out of me though until I got inside. But once you were in you were gripped. It was a very friendly, welcoming club. The music was very vibrant and the dancing was completely different to anything I'd ever seen before. I just thought it was great. Then I started going once or twice a month at least. It was everything to me."

Rob's story was a familiar one with people from all over Britain becoming members of the exclusive club. I'd say about 50 percent of the people came from the Manchester area and the rest were travellers," he says.

"They came from the Midlands, a lot of people came from Carlisle, Barrow, north Wales. Although I never met any Scots there apparently you used to get the odd person coming down from Dumfries or Glasgow as well. It was a unique scene and people wanted to be part of it. When the artists were on it was packed out but when it was just records it was just nice. Busy, but not hammered. When the nights finished people went straight home if they were local. But I had to wait until 6:30pm in the evening to get a train back so we used to go the Top Twenty club in Oldham, get the bus there, sleep it off a bit listen to a little bit of music until mid-afternoon then make our way to the station."

The influx of visitors drawn to all-night clubs like The Wheel didn't go unnoticed in the city at the time. A report from the Manchester Evening News and Chronicle on the October 3 1966 had the headline 'Sunday scandal on a station of teenage shame.' It read: "Hundreds of teenagers drift into Victoria Station on a Sunday morning. It is a sad and shocking story that nevertheless has to be told. The same hundreds of teenagers, many of them 14 or 15 years old, ill-dressed, slovenly, often affected by drugs and drink who take over the buffet and toilet facilities en masse. They start arriving from all night-clubs about 7:30am, usually it is about midday before the last of the drifters have gone....it is obvious some have taken drugs, their eyes are fixed and staring with dilated pupils. They have come to Manchester from all parts of the country by car, by train by hitchhiking to sample life. People would go to the pub beforehand but inside it was just soft drinks," Rob says.

"George Best did go once but he didn't stay long as he was looking for a drink! There were some who would be taking amphetamines to keep them going all night. It was very much an amphetamine scene really. But it wasn't abused in my opinion – you could get them over the counter until the late 1950s. It was all about the music. The club was so popular as it was at the time literally the only place to hear that sort of music. That little basement club on Whitworth Street, it started Northern Soul off. It's now massive in the music world and it was only a little club, but that's where it all started."

When it opened in 1963, the club mainly copied clubs in London in terms of the blues and R&B music it played. But, by the mid-1960s it was starting to play more soul records imported from the US, in particular Chicago, New Orleans and Detroit. DJs would acquire records from specialist market stalls and shops in London and Manchester as well as importing them directly from the states themselves. This saw the club develop its own type of genre of soul music which became known as 'Northern Soul.' The phrase was coined by Dave Godin, who ran the Soul City record shop in Covent Garden in London and was first publicly used in his column in Blues & Soul magazine in June 1970. He says he came up with the title in 1968, to help employees at his shop identify music which was becoming popular with northern football fans visiting the shop.

In the book, which Rob says was a 'labour of love' and an attempt to fully chronicle the club's history and impact, has compiled a exhaustive list of the records, but also the DJs who gave the club's music its distinctive sound. The DJ's at The Wheel DJs were often 'a bit anonymous' being tucked away in DJ booths, with their names not being used on posters Rob says. However, he says their influence cannot be understated. Particularly that of Brian '45' Phillips, who had a regular Saturday night slot at the club between April 1969 and September 1970 and who he dubs the 'Godfather of Northern Soul.'

In the book Brian says: "In my time DJ’ing at The Wheel, imports were becoming more and more prevalent and accounted for around 35 percent of my plays. Soul imports started surfacing in the mid-sixties, turning up in obscure places, especially market stalls in London where I visited on a regular basis. I went frequently on a Saturday, getting the early train and returning on the last one. There were regular market stalls I used to visit, Record Corner in Balham was a good source but I never had much luck at Soul City. Many shops seemed to have records in the sixties, I remember going into a book shop in Manchester and there was a stack of Okeh records lying on the floor."

Brian gave up his Saturday night slot at the club after around 18 months. Asked why, he said: "I liked to mix with people and in that DJ booth you couldn't. I also didn't much like the bar part and sweeping up. I would happily have stayed if I could have just DJ'd, but I was told it wasn't possible."

Other phenomenons that became distinctly Northern Soul - the style of dancing, the throwing of talcum powder on the floor to allow people to slide, and badges sewed onto jackets, are also credited as having started at The Wheel. The scene then began to quickly spread to other venues such as the Wigan Casino and the Golden Torch in Stoke-on-Trent.

The Twisted Wheel closed in 1971 after a new by-law prevented premises from staying open more than two hours into the following day, making all-night events, which were the club's staple, illegal. Edwin Starr played to a packed crowds on its closing night.

It re-opened as Placemate 7 in the 1970s, went on to become Follies and then Legends, until it closed for good in 2012.

From 2000, nostalgia soul nights were held in the original Whitworth Street location on the final Friday of every month. In 2013, despite fierce opposition from music fans, the building was demolished to make way for a new hotel. However the night continues, now being held at Night People on Princess Street. And, Rob says, for those that graced its dancefloor, the memories will live on.

"It was a great time in my life" he says. "I'm still into the music, it's expanded enormously since then. But it was always a special place for me as I'm sure it was for so many people."

6 Whitworth Street, The Birthplace of Northern Soul by Rob McKeever is out now and is available from furnesspeninsulapress.co.uk It is also stocked by Amazon, Ebay and specialist soul music outlets.