Wigan’s famous northern soul music enjoys an amazing revival ahead of Casino’s 50th anniversary

The BBC's One Show recently featured a devoted northern soul fan from Sheffield, Amy Hodkin, who has found viral fame on TikTok and is inspiring a new generation of fans by setting up a youth club.

This year's BBC Proms festival at the Royal Albert Hall also showcased northern soul with a special performance by the BBC Concert Orchestra – to be broadcast in August – while the official Wigan Casino 50th anniversary event will take place in the town later this year.

Legendary Wigan Casino DJ Russ Winstanley was featured in the BBC programme and is also the driving force behind the anniversary celebration.

This will take place over the weekend of October 20 and 21 on the site of the old casino – now sadly long gone – at Wigan’s Grand Arcade, and features Russ along with other top Wigan DJs.

It also features legendary northern soul acts including Tommy Hunt, Paul Stuart Davies, Johnny Boy and the Reflectionz, plus a massive exhibition of memorabilia and record and clothing stalls.

Russ, who lives in Beech Hill, has all the statistics at his fingertips about the incredible phenomenon which made Wigan synonymous with northern soul and put it on the world musical map.

He said: "It was my idea to start the Wigan Casino all-nighters on September 23, 1973, running for 536 all-nighters weekly on Saturday and monthly on Fridays, until December 6 1981.

"I ran and DJ'd at every one, including the early weekly sessions every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, which were another 1,238 sessions. We attracted over four million soul lovers to the Casino and our This England documentary in 1977 was watched by 21m viewers.

"People had to travel to get to Wigan Casino to hear the type of records we played.

"We also had lots of great live artists including Jackie Wilson, Edwin Starr, Martha Reeves and the Marvelettes.

"We got so many records in the charts too and had our own record label."

But the icing on the cake was Wigan Casino being voted the world’s number one nightclub in 1978, beating the likes of New York’s Studio 54, and Russ himself was number one DJ.

Russ, 72, is still the chief ambassador for northern soul music, DJing at events around the country and as far afield as Detroit, Dubai, Cyprus and Rome.

He said: "Northern soul has never really gone away. We still put on big events at Butlin's and it pulls in hundreds. But I'm now seeing more younger people at our venues – they're looking for something a little bit different.

"We also keep a lot of working men’s clubs and pubs going by putting on northern soul events."

Northern Soul classics have also been covered by world superstars, including Bruce Springsteen with his version of Frank Wilson’s 1965 song Do I Love You (Indeed I Do).

Having never been released in America, Russ came across it in the 1970s and played it for northern soul crowds at Wigan Casino, where it proved a big hit and was in fact the last song ever played there.