More Soul Nation, a northern Journo says

[danny webb]

terry Christian writes some sense inthe Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,988395,00.html) , funnily he agrees with you Martin...


cheers Greg for the link

[danny webb]

Oh canb someone paste the article, I have problems with such technical wizadry.

[erd]

Wigan? Is that in Camden?

British soul did not start in London - whatever Trevor Nelson might think, says Terry Christian

Tuesday July 1, 2003
The Guardian


Trevor Nelson (above) and Terry Christian

Trevor Nelson has something to tell us. "It was in London," he proclaims on Channel 4's Soul Nation website, "where British soul was truly born." How remarkable. I had thought that, before 1978, all the big-selling, hit-making soul groups in the UK - with the exception of Hot Chocolate - had come from outside London. But in Nelson's personal history of British soul, none of those big-selling soul bands from outside London is even mentioned.

In the first programme of his three-part series, Nelson spent 10 minutes covering Wigan Casino and even visited a northern soul night in Wigan to discuss its legacy. (Needless to say, northern soul is very much in vogue in London today.) He more or less summed the Wigan scene up as a bunch of white blokes listening to old records. And then London came to the rescue.

Viewers weren't told that the first all-black British soul group to reach number one in the UK charts was Manchester's Sweet Sensation, with a song called Sad Sweet Dreamer in September 1974. Nor that Liverpool's the Real Thing, who had a huge hit in June 1976 with You to Me Are Everything, were the biggest-selling British black soul group of the 1970s and 1980s. We didn't hear how the Average White Band from Scotland went to number one in the US Billboard chart in 1975 with Pick Up the Pieces, the fourth biggest-selling single of that year in America, nor that their album was number one in the US charts at the same time.

In Nelson's defence, this is a "personal journey". So the second episode, dealing with the 1980s, offered a lot of nonsense about the Wag club and Sade and the Face magazine and people going to London clubs in fancy dress. In fact, the Wag club was modelled on Manchester's Berlin Club.

After travelling to Wigan for the first show and wondering what everyone was doing listening to a lot of old records , Nelson spent the second show telling us about warehouse parties in London where he listened to a lot of not-very-rare funk tracks from the 1970s. Many of these were first played at northern soul all-nighters (Gil Scott-Heron's The Bottle, for instance, and Donny Hathaway's The Ghetto). Most of them could be bought at Yanks records in Manchester for 29p (something a lot of the London lads knew only too well: they used to come up to buy loads of cheap stuff and flog it in London as rare groove). Nelson reflected on his DJ mentor Norman Jay playing Jean Knight's 1968 soul standard, Mr Big Stuff, claiming that this was a track "no one else was playing". No one, that is, apart from just about every wedding-party DJ I've ever come across.

Nelson even seemed to miss out on the big London tunes of the early 1980s. He doesn't mention Junior Giscombe, the first black British artist to appear on the US television show Soul Train with his huge hit Mama Used to Say; nor David Grant's band Linx, Freeze or Central Line. The London Nelson inhabited seems a pretty static, retro-obsessed place.

Then he tells us about Jazzie B and the Soul II Soul nights. Vocalist Caron Wheeler claims that: "Soul II Soul were hip-hop soul before Mary J Blige." Interesting. What Nelson doesn't seem to know is that Soul II Soul's "unique" sound was uncannily similar to the Wild Bunch, and in particular Smith and Mighty, from mid-1980s Bristol. Coincidentally, Nellee Hooper, the engineer with Smith and Mighty and a Bristol lad, produced Soul II Soul's album.

In Soul Nation, we clearly have a programme that can't see beyond the North Circular - that is happy to present vox pops from people who went to the Wag club but not interview such influential and innovative DJs on the national soul scene as Richard Searling, Hewan Clarke or Colin Curtis. It is so insular in its outlook that it completely ignores soul music in the rest of Britain. What next? Nelson discovers that early man came from Camden?

Soul Nation isn't the only culprit in this ministry of misinformation. Ten years ago, BBC2 broadcast a strand on the history of black British R&B. This, too, skipped all references to the many hit-making northern bands.

Could I make a documentary on punk and say that it was truly born in Manchester? Could I bang on for three one-hour episodes about the Buzzcocks, the Fall and Slaughter and the Dogs and just not mention the Sex Pistols and the Clash? If anyone criticised it, I could say it was a personal journey, and if anyone asked why I had made a statement such as, "Manchester was where punk was born", I could reply: "It's great, everyone is talking about the programme and we've had complaints, but loads of people have been calling up to say how fantastic the show was." Because that is just the response I had from Channel 4 and Diverse when I asked them that question.

On Sunday, Nelson was heard on his Radio 1 show pleading for "the anoraks" to back off, pointing out that Soul Nation is just a little introduction to soul music in Britain. The trouble is that it is an extremely poorly researched introduction with a good presenter, some decent footage and a series of lame excuses. Trevor Nelson's Soul Nation? Trevor Nelson's London mates, more like.

· The final episode of Soul Nation is on Channel 4 on Tuesday. Turn on Terry is on ITV1 on Thursday.

[danny webb]

Thanks.

[Ben.]

British soul did not start in London - whatever Trevor Nelson might think, says Terry Christian

Tuesday July 1, 2003
The Guardian

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/arts/2003/07/01/0TerryChristianandTrevor.jpg

Trevor Nelson (above) and Terry Christian

Trevor Nelson has something to tell us. "It was in London," he proclaims on Channel 4's Soul Nation website, "where British soul was truly born." How remarkable. I had thought that, before 1978, all the big-selling, hit-making soul groups in the UK - with the exception of Hot Chocolate - had come from outside London. But in Nelson's personal history of British soul, none of those big-selling soul bands from outside London is even mentioned.

In the first programme of his three-part series, Nelson spent 10 minutes covering Wigan Casino and even visited a northern soul night in Wigan to discuss its legacy. (Needless to say, northern soul is very much in vogue in London today.) He more or less summed the Wigan scene up as a bunch of white blokes listening to old records. And then London came to the rescue.

Viewers weren't told that the first all-black British soul group to reach number one in the UK charts was Manchester's Sweet Sensation, with a song called Sad Sweet Dreamer in September 1974. Nor that Liverpool's the Real Thing, who had a huge hit in June 1976 with You to Me Are Everything, were the biggest-selling British black soul group of the 1970s and 1980s. We didn't hear how the Average White Band from Scotland went to number one in the US Billboard chart in 1975 with Pick Up the Pieces, the fourth biggest-selling single of that year in America, nor that their album was number one in the US charts at the same time.

In Nelson's defence, this is a "personal journey". So the second episode, dealing with the 1980s, offered a lot of nonsense about the Wag club and Sade and the Face magazine and people going to London clubs in fancy dress. In fact, the Wag club was modelled on Manchester's Berlin Club.

After travelling to Wigan for the first show and wondering what everyone was doing listening to a lot of old records , Nelson spent the second show telling us about warehouse parties in London where he listened to a lot of not-very-rare funk tracks from the 1970s. Many of these were first played at northern soul all-nighters (Gil Scott-Heron's The Bottle, for instance, and Donny Hathaway's The Ghetto). Most of them could be bought at Yanks records in Manchester for 29p (something a lot of the London lads knew only too well: they used to come up to buy loads of cheap stuff and flog it in London as rare groove). Nelson reflected on his DJ mentor Norman Jay playing Jean Knight's 1968 soul standard, Mr Big Stuff, claiming that this was a track "no one else was playing". No one, that is, apart from just about every wedding-party DJ I've ever come across.

Nelson even seemed to miss out on the big London tunes of the early 1980s. He doesn't mention Junior Giscombe, the first black British artist to appear on the US television show Soul Train with his huge hit Mama Used to Say; nor David Grant's band Linx, Freeze or Central Line. The London Nelson inhabited seems a pretty static, retro-obsessed place.

Then he tells us about Jazzie B and the Soul II Soul nights. Vocalist Caron Wheeler claims that: "Soul II Soul were hip-hop soul before Mary J Blige." Interesting. What Nelson doesn't seem to know is that Soul II Soul's "unique" sound was uncannily similar to the Wild Bunch, and in particular Smith and Mighty, from mid-1980s Bristol. Coincidentally, Nellee Hooper, the engineer with Smith and Mighty and a Bristol lad, produced Soul II Soul's album.

In Soul Nation, we clearly have a programme that can't see beyond the North Circular - that is happy to present vox pops from people who went to the Wag club but not interview such influential and innovative DJs on the national soul scene as Richard Searling, Hewan Clarke or Colin Curtis. It is so insular in its outlook that it completely ignores soul music in the rest of Britain. What next? Nelson discovers that early man came from Camden?

Soul Nation isn't the only culprit in this ministry of misinformation. Ten years ago, BBC2 broadcast a strand on the history of black British R&B. This, too, skipped all references to the many hit-making northern bands.

Could I make a documentary on punk and say that it was truly born in Manchester? Could I bang on for three one-hour episodes about the Buzzcocks, the Fall and Slaughter and the Dogs and just not mention the Sex Pistols and the Clash? If anyone criticised it, I could say it was a personal journey, and if anyone asked why I had made a statement such as, "Manchester was where punk was born", I could reply: "It's great, everyone is talking about the programme and we've had complaints, but loads of people have been calling up to say how fantastic the show was." Because that is just the response I had from Channel 4 and Diverse when I asked them that question.

On Sunday, Nelson was heard on his Radio 1 show pleading for "the anoraks" to back off, pointing out that Soul Nation is just a little introduction to soul music in Britain. The trouble is that it is an extremely poorly researched introduction with a good presenter, some decent footage and a series of lame excuses. Trevor Nelson's Soul Nation? Trevor Nelson's London mates, more like.

· The final episode of Soul Nation is on Channel 4 on Tuesday. Turn on Terry is on ITV1 on Thursday.

[Martin Red]

graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Quoting this from another thread, as it ties in.


Originally posted by greg wilson:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Martin Red:
Perhaps by posting this from "The Guardian" much less flack than if a dhp member said even something even vaguely similar ;)

(aticle above)


Hi Martin, I wrote a piece myself on the back of all this:

SOUL CONDEMNATION

Trevor Nelson's three-part Channel 4 documentary, 'Soul Nation', has received heavy criticism, with the main complaints regarding poor research and London bias. The controversy surrounded the first two programmes in particular, and their portrayal of the development of British black music during the 70's and 80's.

The series prompted Terry Christian, ex-presenter of 'The Word', C4's infamous 90's music show, to write an article in The Guardian, entitled 'Wigan? Is That In Camden?'. The Manchester-born presenter and DJ (who currently hosts his own ITV show, 'Turn On Terry') pulled no punches in his assessment of 'Soul Nation'.

Christian quite rightly pointed out that bands like Manchester's Sweet Sensation and Liverpool's The Real Thing, who both topped the UK chart (in 1974 and 1976 respectively, opening the doors for other black performers in the UK), had been completely omitted from this 'history'. Instead, viewers who didn't know any better were led to believe that London's Hi-Tension, who arrived on the scene in '78, were at the vanguard (being proclaimed on the programme as 'the Godfathers of British Soul' is something I'm sure the band themselves are somewhat embarrassed by).

There was no mention of the origins of the British Soul scene back in the 60's; the first programme started at Wigan Casino (which opened in 1973), before moving South (where it would remain for the rest of the series) to the Soul Mafia strongholds of Canvey Island and Caister. For those of you who are interested in digging deeper I'd highly recommend Mike Ritson and Stuart Russell's excellent book, 'The In Crowd' (Bee Cool Publishing 1999).

Had the series been called something like 'Trevor Nelson's Soul Odyssey' it wouldn't have been so bad (in this way it would have been viewed as his own subjective account), but if you're going to call something 'Soul Nation', then it has to be inclusive of the wider British experience. With the exception of 12 minutes on Northern Soul at the start of the first programme, the series was completely dominated by events in and around London. No wonder there's been such an outcry.

This was perfectly illustrated when the story reached Soul II Soul, and their 'unique' sound. Christian pointed out that this was "uncannily similar to the Wild Bunch, and in particular Smith And Mighty, from mid-80's Bristol". How the Bristol scene, which, of course, included the hugely influential Massive Attack (emerging from The Wild Bunch), was totally ignored, is almost criminal! Reminding a not so clever Trevor that he hadn't done his homework, Christian continued; "Coincidently, Nellee Hooper, the engineer with Smith And Mighty and a Bristol lad, produced Soul II Soul's album".

I was especially interested to see how he handled the impact of the Electro-Funk / Hip Hop scene. I hadn't expected him to go into it in any real depth, but I was extremely surprised, and obviously disappointed, when he bypassed it completely. To say that the Sound Systems played only Reggae or Soul and Rare Grooves is to forget all about people like the Mastermind Roadshow (Herbie from Mastermind mixed Morgan Khan's massively influential Electro albums) and, once again, Bristol's Wild Bunch (who issued a retrospective compilation just last year, called 'The Story Of A Sound System' on the Strut label). By the time the programme got to Soul II Soul (described as the first Hip Hop / Soul group) there'd been no explanation whatsoever as to where this Hip Hop influence had come from in the first place!

Electro and Hip Hop would prove to be a major inspiration for Jungle, Drum And Bass, and subsequently UK Garage (plus the more recent Urban flavours), which were discussed later in the series, but once again the connection was missing. Instead, we're led to believe that all this is in some way related to acts like Imagination, Loose Ends, Sade and Simply Red, rather than the collision of cultures (West Indian and Hip Hop) that was taking shape on the underground black scenes in cities like Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, Nottingham, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield and London, while Trevor Nelson was trying, unsuccessfully, to get into Soho's ultra-trendy Wag club.

I don't want to kick someone when they're down, but 'Soul Nation' delivered a kick in the teeth for so many people who played their parts, big and small, in changing British popular culture, but were denied a voice. Rather than dismissing his critics as 'anoraks', Trevor Nelson should hold his hands up and admit to some big mistakes. That would be the honourable thing to do.

What makes the series particularly damaging is that the younger generation will take 'Soul Nation' at face value, regarding it as a definitive account, and unless Channel 4 makes another series of programmes, which are this time properly researched and expertly presented, the history of the British black music scene will have been done a huge disservice.

I'm sure that when the people behind 'Soul Nation' began to put the idea together it was with the best of intentions, but these programmes are supposed to enlighten, rather than mislead us, and it shouldn't have taken someone like Terry Christian, after the event, to point out what must have been glaringly obvious to at least some of the people involved in the production.

The sad thing is that a rare opportunity to truly reflect our national love affair with Soul music, resulting in a wealth of black British culture (North, South, East and West), has been wasted. Let's hope it won't be too long before the record is set straight.

Copyright - Greg Wilson July 2003

LINKS:
Terry Christian's article in The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,988395,00.html

Feedback to 'Soul Nation' on BBC website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/urban/reviews/nelson_soulnation.shtml

Greg Wilson's article 'Electro-Funk - What Did It All Mean?'
http://www.daveyd.com/articleelectrofunkroots.html </font>[/QUOTE]

[Martin Red]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/ayianapa2000/video_report1.shtml


"Hundreds of clubbing tourists gathered around the Nissi Beach bar to watch Trevor Nelson and the Dreem Teem broadcast their shows over the weekend in the searing heat, with a beautiful backdrop of crystal clear waters. Sadly, the party turned sour when further down the beach a fight broke out during Trevor's show, resulting in a 35 year-old receiving serious stab wounds"


http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/ayianapa2000/video_report1.shtml

[Hk]

Question....

A friend of mine from Detroit once told me about a major skam in which an African American cat bought to the UK a bunch of rare and old R&B rekkids and sold them to a bloke who made killing on it, which, at the time, I thought helped fuel that oldish R&B sound commonly heard in some places in England....

(if you dont understand dont comment and dont worry about it, I could just be off base--not unlikely).....

?????

[greg wilson]

Originally posted by Hk:
Question....

A friend of mine from Detroit once told me about a major skam in which an African American cat bought to the UK a bunch of rare and old R&B rekkids and sold them to a bloke who made killing on it, which, at the time, I thought helped fuel that oldish R&B sound commonly heard in some places in England....

(if you dont understand dont comment and dont worry about it, I could just be off base--not unlikely).....

????? Hi Hk: What year was this? I'm presuming it was in the 70's and, if so, regards the Northern Soul scene.

To simplify it, Northern Soul evolved out of DJ's playing records that were derivative of the more uptempo dancefloor tunes released by Motown in the 60's (i.e - rather than playing the big hits, they'd be looking for tracks released on the smaller labels, especially from Detroit, that had that Motown flavour). It was a retrospective scene with a huge underground following, and US 7" singles were traded at all the major events.

The rarity value of a particular record could make all the difference to a DJ when it came to getting bookings. People would literally travel hundreds of miles to hear a specific record (of which there might be only one known copy in the country at that time). The value of these elusive records obviously shot up as they became more and more popular with the dancers, and a number of people from the Northern Soul scene began travelling to the US, specifically to hunt for rare Soul records.

The scene still exists today, with regular events throughout the country, although it's heyday was the 70's. To date, the highest amount paid for a record was £15,000 for 'Do I Love You' by Frank Wilson, on Motown subsidiary label, Soul (only 2 copies of this record are known to exist). It's value would no doubt increase somewhat if it was sold on again.

DHP member, ladyboygrimsby, has just included an interview with Ian Dewhirst, a major player on the Northern Soul scene, on his DJ History site. If you'd like a greater insight I'd recommend you read it: http://www.djhistory.com/books/archiveInterviewDisplay?interview_id=36

Anyway, I hope this helps with your question.

[ November 06, 2003, 11:38 AM: Message edited by: greg wilson ]

[Martin Red]

[ November 07, 2003, 08:38 AM: Message edited by: Martin Red ]