Wigan Casino 50th Anniversary Mix

Unless you've been living on the dark side of the moon, or have no interest in Northern Soul, you will be well aware that this weekend commemorates the 50th anniversary of the first all-nighter at Wigan Casino on 23rd Sep 1973. 

The main celebratory event is a weekender at Blackpool Winter Gardens organised by original Casino DJs Richard Searling and Kev Roberts but in recent weeks Casino mainstay Russ Winstanley has thrown his hat in the ring with a weekender in Wigan and there are other events up and down the country. 

Not to be left out, it is also the 44th Anniversary of 6Ts Rhythm & Soul Society, although all-nighters didn't commence until around 1981 at The 100 Club on Oxford St (London). It was founded in Aug 1979 by Ady Croasdel and the late Randy Cozens. An all-nighter is being held on Sat 23 Sep at The 100 Club which is ticket only and is sold out.

To get you in the mood we've put together a mix of Wigan 'classics'. It's 'wart's n all' as we have not attempted to 'sanitise' it. We wouldn't pretend that many are necessarily our favourite Northern Soul tracks of all time as many haven't stood the test of time and the Casino had a propensity of playing a lot of, what are now regarded as, white pop music, but they were all popular there in their day (you must appreciate that most punters were teenagers at the time). 

Most of the tracks are from the mid 70s (from memory attending). Some may have already been oldies from The Torch and before, but in the main they are Wigan sounds with some perhaps finding their way there from the Blackpool Mecca, however, they were all played at the Casino.

We've opened with the first record ever played there (The Sherrys "Put your Arms Around Me") and ended, obviously, with the 'Three Before Eight'. Running time is five hours (127 beat / key (where possible) matched tracks).

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VA [2023] - Wigan Casino Three Before Eight [Outta Sight #OS230923]

On 23 Sep 2023, the now legendary, Wigan Casino will celebrate 50 years since opening it's doors at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning of 23 Sep 1973. Inevitably there will be many different events celebrating the occasion with the 'official' one taking place over the weekend of 22-24 Sep at The Winter Gardens in Blackpool. The two main stay DJs were founder Russ Winstanley and Richard Searling who had a parting of the way many years ago and never the twain shall meet so Richard is organising the Blackpool event and no doubt Russ will be doing his own, although I'm not up to speed on them all.

Anyway, also inevitably, Outta Sight has just reissued the famous "Three Before Eight" on 7" vinyl. They were originally all featured on a single back in 1978 on RK Records and the sleeve artwork has been duplicated. They were issued again by Goldmine Soul Supply, not dated but probably late 90s around 96/97.

For the uninitiated, the all-nighters ran every Sat/Sun night for eight years until 1981 and these three songs were played at the end of every all-nighter by Russ Winstanley and signalled the end of the event. They were played in order of Jimmy Radcliffe "Long After Tonight Is All Over" (1965), Tobi Legend "Time Will Pass You By" (1968) and Dean Parrish "I'm On My Way" (1967). Fifty years on and Tobi Legend is still one on my all time favourites. I recall buying the first reissue of it on Eric which had a jump in it and spent ages carefully trying to stop it jumping and ended up with a hiss where I'd held the stylus down on it, the inexperience of youth! By the way, dear old Kylie Minogue is about the only one I know of who's tried to cover the song, on her 1994 self-titled album.

Included below is the last time they were heard at the Casino on the final all-nighter in 20 Sep 1981, although there were a few false ends much to the miff of some all-nighter goers but a joy to others as there were additional nights to be enjoyed.

I'm not quite sure who the target buyer is for this one as anyone involved in Northern Soul who collects records must surely already have these in some format (vinyl and/or CD) but perhaps it's aimed at a new, younger, Northern Soul devotee as I suppose they haven't been available on vinyl since the late 90s but are relatively cheap and easy to pick up if anyone wanted one!

Click on image below for link to where you can buy from.

Details

Rating:	8.4
Explicit:	N
Genre/Style:	Northern Soul
Format:	Single / Reissue
Media:	7"
Label:	Outta Sight
Cat No:	None
Date:	26/03/2023
Key/BPM:	9A/115 / 7B/133 / 4B/128
Price:	£15

Copyright © 2009-2023 SoulStrutter All Rights Reserved