The story of Northern Soul

• A scene from SoulBoy

INSIDE the splendour of a Victorian Gothic church, a group of men and women dance in perfect time to uptempo beats. The girls wear full circle skirts while the men sport vests and baggy trousers, and as they spin and shuffle and clap their hands a camera captures every move.

The setting was St Salvador's Episcopal Church in Dundee in 2005, the event a special gathering to connect religious iconography with the passion of Northern Soul music. The award-winning film by artist Matt Stokes is called Long After Tonight and the McManus Gallery in Dundee is showing it over the summer to celebrate a subculture that has endured in Scotland now for nearly half a century.

To the uninitiated, Northern Soul is a dance movement that emerged during the late 1960s in the North of England, one that embraced a style of black American soul music which had its roots in Tamla Motown. Strangely, it was mostly working-class people from Northern communities who connected with the sound and by the 1970s the music genre had evolved into an energised underground youth cult. Events attracted hundreds of people to "all-nighters" where dance aficionados performed spins, flips and backdrops in extraordinary styles that were in some respects a precursor to breakdancing.

Eschewing mainstream hits and focusing on soul rarities, Northern Soul centred around clubs such as Lancashire's legendary Wigan Casino, The Torch in Stoke, Clouds in Edinburgh, The Music Hall in Aberdeen and Dundee's Marryat Hall, and while the likes of punk, mod and rave music came then faded, Northern Soul has survived.

Stokes' short film captures the grace of Northern Soul beautifully and its exposure comes at a time when the scene is thriving again in Scotland. His work drew on Dundee's history as home to a vibrant soul scene and in 2006 he was awarded the Beck's Future Prize for his art, a national award akin to the Turner Prize.

Intrigued by subcultures, Stokes' idea was to reflect the passion people have for the music, and the name he chose for his film was a nod to a classic song by Jimmy Radcliffe called Long After Tonight is All Over.

Stokes says: "I was invited to work on an art project about Dundee and I had three friends from the city who were huge Northern Soul fans. They told me that "Sally's" (St Salvador's Church) was a famous venue for soul nights and when I saw the church for the first time I thought it was stunning. My film juxtaposes dancers with the church's religious imagery. The roots of soul music was in gospel churches and the point was that Northern Soul is like religion to people, hence its motto, 'Keep The Faith'."

Soul nights were actually held in the church's adjacent hall but after speaking to the minister and the congregation he was given permission to remove the pews, put down a temporary wooden dance floor and film inside the church itself, which was built in 1868. His film is just under seven minutes long but some ten hours of footage were shot over two nights.

Maureen Wallace, from Rosyth, was one of the dancers who took part. She's been a soul fan since the 1960s and for the past 15 years has run a monthly club night with her husband, George, at a venue called The Spider's Web in Edinburgh. The couple still attend soul nights almost weekly and they view Northern Soul as a way of life.

She says: "It was fantastic to be invited to take part in Matt's film and we danced over two nights from 8pm until 1am. The men and women wore some of the fashion from the time which was baggy trousers and flared skirts – because you sweated so much and we put talcum powder – on the floor which was used to make dancing easier."

Maureen, 57, is as fanatical about Northern Soul as she was some 40 years ago and recalls that her first all-nighter was in 1972 at a club in Crewe called Up the Junction. As the scene erupted she travelled all over Scotland and the North of England to attend dance nights and says that the legendary Wigan Casino really put Northern Soul on the musical map.

"There is footage of me on YouTube dancing at an event there more than 30 years ago. You can see me bobbing about with my blonde hair. Around 2000 people would turn up at the Wigan Casino and we had some fantastic nights. The atmosphere was electric, but Scotland also had some superb soul clubs," she says.

At that time, Maureen's hometown of Rosyth was a bustling naval base and lads there who hailed from Yorkshire and Lancashire would bring their soul records north which, she says, helped kick-start the scene in Scotland. In 1972 she met her husband, George, a soul fanatic from Cheshire who was stationed at Rosyth as a sailor with the Royal Navy and they were married two years later.

As a teenager, George preferred the sound of The Temptations and The Four Tops to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and his passion for Northern Soul developed after his sister would regale him with stories of all-nighters when he was home from the sea on leave.

Back then, he says, it was difficult to get soul music played anywhere in Scotland and he would often turn up at clubs with his own records. His optimism paid off after he started attending an event called Northern Nights at the now demolished Angus Hotel in Dundee. After taking his record collection along he was eventually asked to DJ and started doing a regular Sunday night slot.

He says: "For me, it really took off from there and I'm still playing my records after all this time."

Part of the attraction of Northern Soul, he adds, is that while the sound has roots in Motown, fans generally eschew anything that enjoyed significant mainstream success. The recordings most prized by enthusiasts are usually by lesser-known artists and were initially released in limited numbers and by small US labels such as Ric-Tic, Golden World, Mirwood, Shout and Okeh.

Today, these rarities are prized by collectors and can sell for thousands of pounds. George cites the story of a retired Scottish DJ and record collector called Kenny Burrell who sold a 1965 record called Do I love you (Indeed I Do) by Frank Wilson for 25,742 in 2009. Burrell bought the single in 1997 – one of only two in the world – for 15,000.

"Northern Soul was about the music, the dancing and collecting the records. What is unique about Northern Soul is that as a DJ these days you would never get away with turning up at a gig and playing the music digitally or on CD. It has to be the original record," George says.

Aside from Dundee, both Edinburgh and Aberdeen were soul strongholds. Paul Massey – who runs a website called Soul Scotland – has been a fan of black soul music most of his life. He lives in Paisley but spent 20 years in Aberdeen at a time when Northern Soul reached its zenith and he recalls attending soul weekenders in sweat-drenched venues such as The Music Hall and The Belmont.

"There were massive dance nights held all over the Edinburgh area and the east of Scotland – in Aberdeen, Bathgate, Bonnyrigg, Glenrothes, Edinburgh, Dundee and Monifieth – but for some bizarre reason it never quite took off in the west of Scotland. The music speaks to you. It's very emotional music and once it gets a hold, it never quite lets go.

"It's also a very friendly culture and I think Northern Soul appealed to working-class people because they could relate to the lyrics written by black people living in the industrial heartland of American, cities such as Chicago and Detroit.

Its influence has always been there, with people such as Paul Weller, Soft Cell and Oasis acknowledging the music, and today, the likes of Duffy. And there was the Mod scene and the scooter boys in the early 1980s who also embraced it. But it never became mainstream and that was important for many people. The scene died somewhat during the 1980s as its early acolytes had families but there was a rennaissance during the 1990s and now there are soul nights every week," Paul says.

In October, Scotland will host its first Northern Soul all-nighter for nearly 15 years, an event that will be held at the MacRobert Pavilion, Ingliston, Edinburgh, but for Maureen, George, Paul, and hundreds of other loyal soul fans there will be numerous dance nights before then.

• Long After Tonight is on at The McManus Dundee Art Gallery & Museum. The film is complemented by an exhibition of Northern Soul memorabilia which includes framed Tamla Motown posters, flyers and boxes of rare 45 singles. The exhibition runs until 4 September 2011 and admission is free. www.themcmanus-dundee.gov.uk/print/content/exhibitions/matt-stokes-long-after-tonight