Steve Bellamy - Mod Memories: Early Mod Notes From Over The Pennines
The Sheffield Esquire was the first club to play R&B type sounds in the North of England. It started life as a Jazz club in the 40's and is still going as some sort of dance club to this day. It's heyday is considered to have been 1960-1966.
Artists like Champion Jack Dupree, Screaming Jay Hawkins and the 'Steam Packet were weekend regulars. I personally remember humping bloody great big speakers and amplifiers for THE WHO, THE SMALL FACES and THE STONES up the two flights of very steep stairs into the club (got in free that way). Just about every 'Original Mod' in Sheffield started out there but later vehemently denied it when the MOJO became Sheffield's No.1 Soul a go-go (yes, we actually used that word) I still have my lifetime membership card and a sweat stained satin shirt given to me there one all Nighter by Levi Stubbs (actually we swapped shirts during the Tops third set, his was so drenched) I often wonder if he kept mine too 
Important note - Scooters were still too expensive to be commonplace so it was the buses or nothing. Unfortunately, the buses stopped running at 10:50. This bus was the fabled 'last bus' out of Sheffield city centre. A bus to be loathed, feared and only ridden by the city hard boys or the truly desperate. Talk about Gladiator training.
Which now brings me to a fact of Northern Soul that you might like to know, have probably always taken as a given but have never know why. It was this very fact of there being no public transportation after 11:00 PM that brought the 'All-Nighter' into being. Terry, the owner of the Esquire, shocked the local constabulary and licensing authority by hosting the North's first 'all night dance night' on Saturday February 11th 1961. I was there and it was truly amazing to see the sun come up through the downstairs toilet windows onto to a dank grey Sheffield Sunday morning. About 30 kids staggered out of the Esquire at 7:00 AM and walked in a daze around to the only place open at that time - the Wimpy bar in the local bowling alley. We sat around talking, laughing and drinking tepid tea waiting for the buses to start running. Yes, we done it but we were truly knackered and not many of us thought all-nighters would last. After all, how could 'anyone' stay up all night long dancing! That particular problem was solved by a very helpful kid from Nottingham the very next All Nighter. Ah - but that's another story.
Friday nights was disco night. The resident DJ had about -wait for this- 5 records in total. He relied on the kids bringing in their own discs and loaning them to him for the night. Actually, it worked out really well. It was the *BIG* thing to get in super early, bring in a new hot US soul/R&B disc and stick it on the turntable to an empty dance floor and just wait for the in-crowd to start arriving, walking up and asking 'who the hell is this' 'Christ where ya get it' 'hey - can I borrow it for my party tomorrow night ' NO YOU FUCKING CAN'T.
I particularly attribute having at least four great sexual encounters with hot mod chicks (full length leathers and Mary Quant hairstyles *still* turn me on) in the downstairs cloakroom of the Esquire to the fact that my school pal worked part time at the local EMI warehouse and would always let me get a look at new arrivals on Thursdays before they went on sale Saturday mornings. Ah, the power of being the first to own 'Saturday night at the Movies' or 'Chain Gang'
So the next time you want to 'one up' your dance floor pal - ask him so why is it Northern Soulies do it all night long? Now you know!
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