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Friday 23 September 2022

Wigan Casino 49th Anniversary


Today 49 years ago Wigan Casino all-nighters opened their doors for the very first time. The first record played was The Sherrys "Put Your Arms Around Me". All-nighters ran every Saturday from 23 Sep 1973 until it's closure in 6 Dec 1981 with the 500th all-nighter being held on 16 May 1981.

At the end of every all-nighter three songs were always played by Russ Winstanley to close the night: Tobi Legend "Time Will Pass You By" (possibly still one of my all time favourite records), Dean Parrish "I'm On My Way" and finally Jimmy Radcliffe "Long After Tonight Is All Over". I'm sure unofficially Gerri Granger "I Go To Pieces" often preceded Tobi Legend from recollection (another of my personal favourites).
To commemorate the event I've put together a playlist of records I first heard there (although not all necessarily Wigan discoveries) which I tried to restrict to 49 but they just kept coming (and there are dozens left out that could have been included). Most would probably be in the 'played out' Northern Soul Top 500 but hey this is a celebration of the club that broke so many of them.

Mentioning the Northern Soul Top 500, Kev Roberts the author of the original 1999 book has just published a new version, which I believe is now the fourth edition. Copies available for £39.50 from link on image below.
As next year is the 50th anniversary, a big weekender event is being held in Blackpool at the Winter Gardens from Fri 22 Sep to Sun 24 Sep. The event is being run by original Casino DJ, the 'main man', Richard Searling. Richard and Russ fell out years ago around the time of the Casino closure so Russ won't be on the bill but many of the original DJ still around will be. Tickets for the weekend are £49 from HERE.

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2 comments:

USMAN47 said...

Being French, I did not experience this great era. But obviously as I'm a soul fan I know them all. On the other hand at the end of the 60s, I knew in Ostend (Belgium) the "Groove" which is for me the biggest club where I discovered fantastic records but very difficult to find at the time, when the owner and DJ Freddy Cousaert (the man who hosted Marvin Gaye) wanted to tell us what we heard. I think that's where I caught the virus.
Also beautiful inexhaustible selection.

Yves

SoulStrutter said...

Hi Yves.. it was a very quick selection with not a great deal of time or thought put into it (as it's Friday and too many new releases to plough through). Perhaps I'll do a more 'selective' NS playlist in the future as these are all pretty well tried and tested.