Northern Soul: Music, Drugs and Subcultural Identity

• NCJ Number: 220690
• Author(s): Andrew Wilson
• Date Published: 2007
• Length: 224 pages
• Sale Source: Willan Publishing
• Publication Format: Book (Hardbound)
• Publication Type: Historical Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: From the Crime Ethnography Series

Annotation

Drawing on the author’s personal involvement and extensive research, this book provides a vivid historical ethnography of the 1970s Northern Soul Scene, providing an account of a unique cultural phenomenon and, at the same time, making a major contribution to the sociology of adolescence, subcultural theories, and deviant careers.

Abstract

This book sets out to explain the context of the 1970s Northern Soul Scene to show how a particular type of subcultural affiliation came to influence people’s practices and in turn how they attributed meaning to their own and others’ actions. In effect, it asks if the subculture provided a set of ordering codes that assisted people in interpreting and understanding their environment. It also examines how that subculture shaped and molded the ways people constructed their social worlds and how it impacted upon their deviance and their understanding of deviance and control. In addition, the book examines how the participants disengaged from the Scene and what were the later life impacts of that involvement. The first chapter attempts to locate the Scene historically by setting out what it evolved from, and considering the way White working-class consumption of African-American music provided the substance that held the Scene together. The second chapter turns to the people involved in the Scene: who they were and how they became involved, and the ways that social relationships were formed through participation. Chapter 3 is where attention moves to the ways that people became amphetamine users at a time when all illicit drug use had a negative image. Chapter 4 considers the way that the social backgrounds of participants, along with the criminalization of drug use, combined to provide a setting for high-risk behavior. The final chapter examines the process of disengagement from the Scene, and the lasting impacts of participation. The term Northern Soul was first used in 1970 by a journalist providing comment that blended musical knowledge with social awareness of the roots of African-American music. This is a sociological study of an aspect of British cultural history and the interplay of friendship, drugs, and music. Bibliography, index