Tim Brown: The Wigan Casino Years (Outta Sight)

THE TITLE of this striking new book is carefully chosen. Of course there was Northern Soul before the Wigan Casino and, almost 30 years after the venue reverberated to soul music for the last time, the scene is vibrant still. But the period 1973-1981 – the lifespan of all-nighters at the gradually crumbling ballroom in the dreary industrial town – saw the movement deepen, broaden, blink briefly and uncomfortably in the spotlight of the mass media, and return to its independent existence.