Northern soul is a music and dance movement that emerged in Northern England and the English Midlands in the late 1960s from the British mod scene, based on a particular style of Black American soul music, especially from the mid-1960s, with a heavy beat and fast tempo (100 bpm and above) or American soul music from northern cities such as Detroit, Chicago and others.
The term "northern soul" emanated from the record shop Soul City in Covent Garden, London, which was run by the soul music collector Dave Godin. It was first publicly used in Godin's weekly column in Blues & Soul magazine in June 1970. In a 2002 interview with Chris Hunt of Mojo magazine, Godin said he had first come up with the term in 1968, to help employees at Soul City differentiate the more modern funkier sounds from the smoother. Godin referred to the latter's requests as "northern soul":
