Eye On Manchester blog by Aidan O’Rourke Tutor Photographer

Personal & professional diary on photography, languages, Français, Deutsch, local interest, art, music, travel and more

Manchester is a city of music. One of the genres that’s closely intertwined with the feel of Manchester is soul, the black urban music that emerged from the north eastern US cities mainly in the 60s and 70s.

Manchester after dark view from Beetham Hilton Tower

Soul records found their way across the Atlantic to Liverpool and via the Ship Canal to the Manchester area, where they were played in clubs like the Twisted Wheel and the Wigan Casino. In the 70s, soul became inextricably linked with the north when the term ‘Northern Soul’ was coined, referring to the raw, obscure soul r’n'b records which gained a huge following in northern England.

New York Manhattan Bridge at night

There are many echoes between Manchester and the north eastern US cities which I’ll be uncovering in future updates of Eye on Manchester but the main reason for this entry is to highlight a radio show where you can hear that classic brand of soul so redolent of the atmosphere of Manchester and northern England in the 60s and 70s.

The show is ‘Soul Sauce’, the DJ is Richard Searling ex Wigan Casino, the station is Smooth Radio (formerly Smooth FM), broadcast time 5-8pm Saturdays (formerly 6-9pm). North West Smooth Radio originates at Exchange Quay Salford Quays by the Manchester Ship Canal and goes out only to the north west. There are sister stations in other parts of the UK.

It’s obvious from all the dedications that Richard reads out that there is a huge following for this genre of music across the region. It’s easy to interact with and be a part of the programme as I found out one evening when I was listening to the show in the car, stopped near Manchester Airport, sent Richard an e-mail and he read out on air only a couple of minutes later.

Richard is a true fan of the music, with boundless enthusiasm and a deep knowledge of his subject. After playing some obscure but wonderful record, he’ll often gives the year and even the month of issue, along with an anecdote about where he bought it.

It’s a classic show that explores an interesting and perhaps nowadays less well known facet of Manchester’s complex musical idenity.

For more info go to www.smoothradio.com.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 25th, 2006 at 8:06 pm and is filed under Eye On Manchester. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.