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We're pleased to announce that Lonnie Liston Smith will be returning to the UK in August for a full tour. 

Best known for his 1974 jazz funk classic Expansions, keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith has played with some of the mightiest artists of our times including Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, Art Blakey, Marvin Gaye and countless others. Since emerging from the 60s free jazz scene, Smith has successfully created his own fusion style incorporating jazz, funk and soul.

This is a rare opportunity to see Lonnie so don't miss out..

(17 June 1957 - 8 October 2013)

Johnny Jukebox has smashed his last Telecaster through the television screen.

56 is no age to be dying. With Philip’s sad and sadly not unexpected death we sorely miss the old man he should have become and who would undoubtedly have continued to exercise his active and enquiring mind with such passion, purpose and humanity.

Joe Bihari’s death on Thanksgiving Day at the age of 88, now leaves Art Rupe and Phil Chess as the sole survivors of a unique group of post-war independent record men. Their efforts created a body of music which remains a major influence on popular music.

Back in the day no black American ever said, “Let’s make a record for all those upcoming teens in the north of England who in a few years will like dancing to uptempo soul while bombed on speed”. Admittedly a few “tailor-mades” did happen but these were a mere footnote to a scene that spent its life scouring record lists, oldies shops, auctions, warehouses and lofts for the next big sound.

Northern Soul is any record that has been played at a Northern Soul dance. That is a ridiculously large number of recordings that stretch from the late 50s to the present day and can vary between Charles Sheffield’s 1961 R&B mover ‘It’s Your Voodoo Working’ to some recent housey thing by Bob Sinclair called ‘Tribute’. The epitome of Northern Soul is 1965-66 uptempo Motown such as ‘It’s The Same Old Song’ by the Four Tops. It has the tempo, the production and Levi Stubbs’ emotion-drenched voice telling us how his girl has legged it; misery often features in the happiest sounding songs. Motown was the benchmark of this music but it was the following crowd that aped their sound and came up with myriad variations that are the essence of Northern.

Take ‘That Beatin’ Rhythm’ by Richard Temple on Mirwood, for many the first Northern label. It wasn’t released in theUKin the 60s and did not reach these shores until the early 70s. Some keen English youth would have found a copy on a US sales list, or in a UK junk shop that a few imports had sidled into, played it at his local club and created a stir. When the big-time DJs got to hear about it, the sharpest and richest charmed it into his own DJ box and regaled the eager dancers at the biggest club of the day, thereby creating a monster sound. It got bootlegged and even legally reissued, sold in the tens of thousands and can still be heard at venues every weekend around the now global Northern Soul world. The sound later embraced 70s shufflers, big-beat ballads, some Latin boogaloo and R&B stompers but it’s that mid-60s sophisticated soul with the on-the-fours beat that is the bedrock.