Twisted Wheel Club
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The Twisted Wheel was a nightclub in Manchester, England, open from 1963 to 1971. It was one of the first clubs to play what became known as northern soul.
The nightclub was founded by brothers Jack, Ivor and Phillip Abadi as a blues and soul live music coffee dance club. The Twisted Wheel had two locations in Manchester during its existence. One was on Brazenose Street (which was a rhythm and blues mod venue, with Roger Eagle as DJ, and the other, on Whitworth Street, venue was mostly soul-oriented. There was another location in Blackpool under the same ownership. The main venue was a converted warehouse, with a coffee snack bar on the ground floor and a series of rooms in the cellar. These lower rooms included a stage, a caged disc jockey area, and the main dance room. Back-lighted iron wheels decorated the simple painted brick walls. Ivor Abadi ran the club without an alcohol license, serving only soft drinks and snacks.
Prior to the opening of the Twisted Wheel, most UK nightclubs played mod-related music such as soul and R&B. Twisted Wheel DJs and local entrepreneurs started to import large quantities of soul records directly from the United States. Many of the records played at the Twisted Wheel were rare even in the United States, and some may only have been released in one city. At the time, in addition to records released by larger record companies, there was a huge number of soul releases by a wide variety of artists on a multiplicity of obscure, independent labels.
All-night sessions were held each Saturday, from 11pm through to Sunday 7:30am. DJs played new records that weren't generally played anywhere else, such as obscure UK soul releases and B-sides. However, in 1969 popular songs like Steam's "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" and Tony Joe White's "Poke Salad Annie" were added to the playlist. Imports only really came in with DJ Brian "Do The 45" Philips, who played The Sharpees "Do The 45", Rex Garvin's "Queen Of The Go Go" and Leon Haywood's "Baby Reconsider". Every week, American soul artists performed live at the club, including: Junior Walker, Edwin Starr, Oscar Toney Jr., Marv Johnson, The Bandwagon, and Inez and Charlie Foxx. Soul fans travelled from all over the UK to go to the Twisted Wheel all-nighters; some by car, but most by train, coach or bus.
By 1970, the club's reputation was that it only played rare and uptempo soul. Following a visit to the Twisted Wheel in 1970, music journalist Dave Godin noted that the music and scene at the club, and in northern England in general, was quite different from the music played in London. The term northern soul became accepted as a description of this genre and subculture.[1]
The club shut down in early 1971 because of a bylaw that stopped premises from staying opening more than two hours into the following day. In more recent times, nostalgia soul nights have been held in the original Whitworth Street location. In 2002, the Twisted Wheel Club reopened at the Whitworth Street venue on the final Friday of every month. It featuring the original DJ playlists, and many of the visitors were original members, such as Brett Speddings, Alan Trotter and John Watson. Two records on Goldmine Records,Twisted Wheel and Twisted Wheel Again, feature songs from the original DJ playlists.
