Blue Note Club Manchester – top soul club

Mable John - Your Good Thing (Is About To End)

THE BLUE NOTE CLUB Gore Street Manchester

Second only to the Twisted Wheel, the Blue Note Club Manchester carried the torch for Soul music in the city from 1967 to 1970 (it did continue to 1971 but at that time it became more varied and more Jamaican music influenced).  It was a typical cellar soul club, not very big but with a very loyal clientele and a cool selection of music. For some strange reason the demolished building has never been built on and is now just a bit of scrap land next to the Waldorf pub.

The Blue Note Club - today
The Blue Note Club – today

The Blue Note has never achieved the kind of notoriety of the Twisted Wheel but in many ways it was its equal in starting and developing what today is known as Northern Soul, certainly in its choice of music.

The DJ who opened the club was Roger Eagle who left the twisted Wheel as its premier music director to launch the nearby new club. He focused greatly on Stax.

ELOISE - W. Bell - Blue Note Club - Soulbot
You Dont Miss Your water - W. Bell -Soulbot
Two regular tracks played at The Blue Note Club, Manchester

Roger got a few parcels of free 45’s direct from Jim Stewart at Stax in Memphis after writing to him. This enabled Roger to be the first to introduce and play quite a lot of Stax material at The Blue Note.

Roger Eagle Leaves The Blue Note Club in 1967

After Roger Eagle left The Blue Note he went on to start his own club STAXX on Fountain Street Manchester (1967).

Stax tracks played at the Blue Note at the time included:

Mable John: Your Good Thing / Able Mable.
Albert King Cold Feet / I Love Lucy
Johnnie Taylor: Toe Hold / Blues In The Night
Sam & Dave: Hold On I’m Comin’ / You Got Me Hummin
Derek Martin: Soul Power

The DJs that followed Roger were well versed in Soul Music and expanded the club’s repertoire, launching many of the classics and many also of what became known as Northern Soul collectibles. They also started to import ’45s from the States and formed a company to import and sell some of the rare singles they managed to acquire. One of the most successful sales was for The Dovells track You Can’t Sit Down which was played by Roger back to back with the Phil Upchurch version, a combination followed at the Blue Note.

Another Blue Note Favourite:

What A Man - Linda Lyndell

A note from the former Blue Note DJ’s:

Hi, Its Dave and Bob here, both of us were DJ’s at this club in the Sixties, along with our pal Dave Lomas: sad to say he passed on a few years back.

Blue Note Club Website

Blue Note DJs

Blue Note Club PLAYLIST@ SOULDIRECTIONS

Soul – Directions