06/06/2026
RIP Dave Godin - champion of American Soul music who would turn 90 this month
21st June 1936 - 15th October 2004.
Pictured here with Marvin and Martha:
Some excerpts from an excellent interview with Bill Brewster in 1998. Bill asks all the right questions and gives real insight into Dave's life:
-Why was it that you think your column started getting popular. Was it because of the growing number of discos?
I was often championing or reviewing records that were either popular, or becoming very popular, in the north. It was the beginning of the schism between north and south and why I coined the term “northern soul.”
-What year was it?
It must’ve been about ’66 or ’67. We had the Soul City record shop, and in some ways the term came about because of the changes that were going on in the American scene. There was a new form,
which was doing very well in America. This is what subsequently came to be termed funk, although we didn’t use it then. James Brown was very instrumental in this.
What happened was London DJs and record buyers tended to slavishly follow the charts. London DJs, for example, would come into the shop, look at the Billboard chart and read off the top five. “Have you got these?” What they were thinking was, “Well, if it’s good in America, then it must be good.”
But what I noticed in the shop was that we used to get a lot of people from the north come down to follow their football teams and a trip to Soul City was part of the day’s agenda.
-Where was it?
Firstly on Deptford High Street, then Monmouth Street. I think it’s an occult shop now.
-Do you know any of the people coming down from the north?
I can’t remember any names. Being a specialist record shop, we relied on playing records in the store since we got no backup from radio or anywhere else, so the shop would get crammed full of people and we would play records. What I noticed was that people who came from the north were not buying what was subsequently called funk. What they wanted was the more non-avant-garde, as it
would have been.
There were three of us in the shop: me, David Nathan and Robert Blackmore. What I did was start using the term northern soul, meaning that when we’ve got a shop full of people from the north [we should] only play northern soul to them. That’s how the term took off. This gap became even wider, and I think that’s why the term took off. There were a lot of disparaging comments [that] went into print about northern soul.
-Why do you think that was?
Patronizing attitudes towards anything outside of London. And these people, being control freaks, didn’t have a dominant input into it. I’d be personally slagged off by Tony Cummings, one of my arch adversaries. I said to Tony, “You must remember soul music is not a religion.” With his subsequent career development, I was right; he was treating it as a religion. He’s now a born-again Christian vicar.
-Tell me about your first trips to Twisted Wheel and places like that.
It was like a blur. What would generally happen was I’d perhaps be invited somewhere and the Wheel in Manchester was one of the first. There’d be a reception committee of fans at the station,
which was lovely. Then we’d go off somewhere for a drink, or if I didn’t arrive till late, then we’d go to the club, which would usually be an all-nighter. I was much younger then, but god these things
could be exhausting. Another thing you must remember is that the northern soul scene was also a drug scene.
-Roger Eagle told me that northern soul was created by drugs and not the other way round.
I’m glad he said that. Roger Eagle?
-The original DJ at the Wheel.
My view towards drugs… I’ve never compromised my view. Even at the height of my popularity on the northern soul scene, I risked everything by writing an article called “Ampheta-Soul,” which
actually tackled the drug issue head-on. Basically, what I was saying was that I was anti-drugs – well, not anti-drugs – but the more cold sober you are in experiencing life, the better it actually is, the
more intense. Dutch courage is false courage.
-What is your assessment of northern soul now, looking back on it?
I think the good qualities are without a doubt that it kept some superb records alive, which they wouldn’t otherwise have had. The downside is what we’ve mentioned about the DJ. When the
northern soul scene was its most vigorous, there was this tremendous search for obscurities, and a lot of great records surfaced as a result of this. But after a while, the chances of discovering some old masterpiece diminish. All the masterpieces have surfaced.
Also, I was very into demystifying records. For example, if I went somewhere and some DJ had some exclusive cover-up I knew, I would immediately blow the whistle and review it. F**k it. Because they were putting their own ego above the singer, the composer and everyone else and I couldn’t abide that.
-Any examples?
I can’t remember now. I remember I got a white-label copy of a record sent me by Van McCoy himself of a record by the Ad Libs. It hadn’t even been issued in America. I was going to Wigan Casino
on the Saturday after it had arrived on the Friday. It was an absolute stunner northern soul tune. “Nothing Worse Than Being Alone,” it was called.
I said to myself, “Oh wow, Van, great,” here’s something I can take up with me, so I took it up. It cleared the floor. And the DJ took it off halfway through. He gave it back to me. He didn’t actually say
it, but I could read his face: “Ooh, you’ve fallen flat on you face with that one.” I was so angry. “You know in a year’s time you’ll be fu***ng begging me for a copy of this.” Sure enough, it becomes one of the biggest northern soul records.
-Who was the DJ?
I think it would be unfair to name him.
-Do you see the DJs on that scene as archaeologists of music?
Well, one of the real problems of the northern scene was the emergence of the DJ as a personality, someone who didn’t have the interests of black America at its heart. Then we got the phenomenon of searching for obscure records for their own exclusivity. Covering them up, which didn’t help the artist or anyone else at all. As soon as a record got reissued they’d drop it from their playlist like a hot potato. It could be argued that DJs, in some ways, have done as much harm as they’ve done good. They have a vested interest in control.
-Could you argue, though, that the DJ is an outlaw?
The only caveat I would put on that is that so long as they’re trafficking in quality. But I think a lot of people lose the thread. I was at a soul weekender once and a guy had a 45 he was selling that he’d dropped the price from £1,250 to £1,000, and I said, “Oh God, can I have a listen to that record? I’d really like to hear what a £1,000 worth of soul sounds like.” Honest to God, it was like a President B side. It was nothing. This is the trouble with capitalism and art; when art takes on value. Berry Gordy used to have a slogan on the Gordy label: It’s what’s in the grooves that counts
