Young Soul Rebels

Book excerpt: The author of Detroit 67 captures Northern England’s underground music scene of the 1970s and ‘80s in this candid memoir of late nights and heavy beats. Young Soul Rebel is a compelling and intimate story of northern soul, Britain's most fascinating musical underground scene. Author Stuart Cosgrove takes the reader on a personal journey through the iconic clubs that made it famous, like The Twisted Wheel, The Torch, Wigan Casino, Blackpool Mecca and Cleethorpes Pier. He also details the bootleggers that made it infamous, the splits that threatened to divide the scene, the great unknown records that built its global reputation and the crate-digging collectors that travelled to America to unearth unknown sounds. A sweeping memoir that covers fifty years of British life, Young Soul Rebel places the northern soul scene in a larger social and historical context that includes the rise of amphetamine culture, the policing of youth culture, the north-south divide, the decline of coastal Britain, the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry, the rise of Thatcherism, the miners' strike, the rave scene and music in the era of the world wide web.