Twisted Wheel
| Location | Brazennose Street, Manchester, Whitworth Street, Manchester, |
|---|---|
| Owner | Jack, Phillip and Ivor Abadi |
| Type | Live music venue |
| Genre(s) | Blues, Soul, Northern Soul |
| Seating type | Standing |
| Opened | 1963 |
| Closed | 1971 |
The Twisted Wheel was a nightclub in Manchester, England, open from 1963 to 1971. It was one of the first clubs to play the music that became known as Northern Soul.
The nightclub was founded by the brothers Jack, Phillip and Ivor Abadi as a blues and soul live music coffee bar/dance club. The original location of the club was on Brazennose Street, between Deansgate and Albert Square. This was the rhythm and blues mod venue, with Roger Eagle as DJ. The club's later location was at 6, Whitworth Street, M1 3QW. This venue was the mostly soul-oriented club with resident Saturday "All Niter" DJ Bob Dee compiling and supervising the playlist and utilising the newly developed slip-cueing technique to cue in vinyl records. The Whitworth Street venue was a converted warehouse, with a coffee snack bar on the ground floor and a series of rooms in the cellar. These lower rooms housed the stage, a caged disc jockey area, and the main dance room. Back-lit iron wheels decorated the simple painted brick walls. Ivor Abadi ran the club without an alcohol licence, serving only soft drinks and snacks. There was another Twisted Wheel in Blackpool under the same ownership.
Prior to the opening of the Twisted Wheel, most UK nightclubs played modern popular music, Soul and R&B. The Twisted Wheel DJs and local entrepreneurs imported large quantities of records directly from the United States. Many of the records played at the Twisted Wheel were rare even in the United States; some may only have been released in one city or state. At the time, in addition to records released by larger record companies, there was a huge number of soul releases by a wide variety of artists on a multiplicity of obscure, independent labels.
All-night sessions were held each Saturday, from 11:00 pm through to Sunday 7:30 am. DJs played new records generally not played elsewhere. However, by 1969 more mainstream songs like Steam's "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" and Tony Joe White's "Polk Salad Annie" were added to the early session playlist. Allnight DJ, Brian "45" Philips introduced - Jerry Cook - "I Hurt on the Other Side"; Dobie Gray - "Out on the Floor"; The Artistics - "This Heart of Mine"; Leon Haywood - "Baby Reconsider", Earl Van Dyke - "6 by 6" and U.S releases on Ric-Tic, Brunswick, Okeh and other obscure labels.
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