According to some religions and some philosophies, life is a cycle involving birth, death, and rebirth, that recalls the eternal recurrence of universal laws. For that, wheel can be a fundamental symbol, commonly associated to the sun, and its nature of eye of the world. Strangely, northern soul is a British subculture originated from a peculiar coffee house in Manchester, UK, that was a temple of the wheel symbol. It was managed by the Abadi brothers, whose ideas have shaped the cited subculture. At the coffee house, named Twisted Wheel, frequenters drank coffee, listened to music, both played by bands and by DJs with two turntables, danced four days-a-week until midnight, and danced all night on Saturdays. It was active from January 1963 to January 1971, until September 1965 at Brazennose Street, and successively at Whitworth Street. The Twisted Wheel was very popular, and people came even from localities 100 miles away from Manchester. It was a unique place all over Britain, where traditional jazz, blues, and rhythm & blues, proper of London’s jazz clubs, were substituted with a bunch of 5000 vinyl records, whose vast majority was constituted of rare 7” at 45 RPM of soul music, danceable and up-tempo.
After having summarized the main information, I explain the reasons for the importance of the wheel symbol at the described place. First, of course, the name itself. Second, the décor of the venue was based on a collection of many different wheels. Behind some of the wheels, there were the elements of the light system, common lamps, not psychedelic. Third, the most important and innovative praxis, a musical program without stops. Before offering more details, I need to underline that the earliest mixer for discotheques, with separate cueing, was built in New York by Alex Rosner, about 7 years later than the opening of the Twisted Wheel. It means that British nightclub DJs hadn’t technical instruments enough for regularly performing the mix on the beat of tracks, approximately until the second half of the 70’s. Despite, the manager of the Twisted Wheel, Mr. Ivor Abadi, around the mid 60’s, wanted to obtain from his DJs a continuous flux of music. For that, Mr. Abadi prohibited the usage of microphone, and the repetition of the style of the DJs of pirate radio stations. Consequently, the DJ of the Twisted Wheel was obliged to switch from one turntable to the other, before the ending of each track. From my readings, I have deduced that DJ Roger Eagle, the earliest professional at the Twisted Wheel, credited as the initiator of northern soul music genre, was forced to leave the job, because he didn’t want to abandon the radio style of the above, and felt nostalgic about jazz and R’N’B. The praxis of non-stop music, invented by Mr. Abadi, was highly innovative, and perfectly suitable to the wheel symbol. With other words, the reproduced music at the Twisted Wheel was tendentially circular, because immune from stops.
The official birth of northern soul was declared by the Journalist Dave Godin, in the year 1978, after having visited and enjoyed the Twisted Wheel. However, the genre is born around the year 1965, and circularity has always been a part of its essence. Well, northern soul is still alive, and is greatly appreciated out of the UK, in various countries of the world. However, the intuition of Mr. Abadi is still not properly put into practice. In effect, rarely northern soul DJs are performing the mix on the beat of tracks, and not for hours and hours, as it happens for disco/house music since the 70’s. Is it possible to perform the same way with rare records of up-tempo soul music? The answer of the blog is yes, given that I’ve already posted a dozen of mixes made of classics of northern soul. Despite, curiously, until today I haven’t posted a mix dedicated to the Twisted Wheel. Naturally, I’m not doing that to please Mr. Abadi, but because I'm a believer in the circularity of dance music.
File name is “web C60 by Max Look DJ, the circularity of the Twisted Wheel (April 2026)”, 1 hour 3’ and 45” of tracks selected from the known playlists of the Twisted Wheel, at an average rhythm of 120 BPM.
My Twisted Wheel, the playlist:
Tyrone Davis - turn back the hands of time
Sugar Pie Desanto - I don't wanna fuss
Jackie Wilson - whispers (gettin’ louder)
Major Lance - um um um um um
Bo Diddley - pretty thing
Elvis Presley - mystery train
Dobie Gray - the in crowd
Willie Mitchell - everything’s gonna be alright
Solomon Burke - cry to me
Bob & Earl - Harlem shuffle
Fats Domino - it keeps rainin'
Soulful Strings - burning spear
Sharpees - tired of being lonely
Fontella Bass - leave it in the hands of love
Marvelettes - please mr postman
Jerry O - karate boogaloo
Four Tops - reach out I'll be there
Little Milton - grits ain’t groceries (all around the world)
Dyke & The Blazers - funky broadway pt.1
Ray Charles - talkin' about you
Willie Hutch - lucky to be loved by you
Rex Garvin & The Mighty Cravers - queen of the go go
Junior Walker & The All Stars - shotgun
Junior Walker & The All Stars - shake and fingerpop
Deon Jackson - love makes the world go around
Barbara Lynn - you're losing me
