Elaine Constantine reveals her wildest northern soul nights

Growing up in a big Catholic community in north Manchester, formed mainly of working-class Irish immigrants, Sunday nights in Elaine Constantine’s household were busy. Food would be prepared, a hodgepodge of relatives would come over, and they would all gather in the living room to watch family films her father had shot on his simple cine-camera. “It was a reflective household,” the photographer and youngest of five says. “The advent of photography available to ordinary people is what got me started. I think rather than the actual physicality of taking pictures, that was what interested me: it was about recording culture, recording emotions and this lovely colour.”

Marked by an honest kind of anti-glamour, Constantine’s images of British youth helped shape the identity of The Face in the 1990s and 00s, later bringing a fresh energy to the pages of Italian, French and American Vogue. Whether shooting teenage girls in the suburbs for fashion campaigns or secret pockets of British subculture, such as elderly tea dances in the north of England, Constantine’s photographic career – like those early family videos – has been defined by searing colour and a raw kind of joy.

Beyond photography, Constantine’s deepest obsession has always been northern soul, a dance culture sprung from niche American soul music that exploded in places like Blackpool and Wigan during the late 1970s. “It was a really fascinating time to be in my age group,” she remembers. “Disco just happened, then mods came about, these bands were coming up like The Jam and The Secret Affair, and then you had scar and two-tone. You just had this amazing crossover of brilliant independent music.” As a teenager, she started sneaking off to northern soul all-nighters in Manchester, shedding her buttoned-up mod outfits for t-shirts and baggy trousers as they were better suited for northern soul’s high tempo, packed-out dancefloors.

A new book and exhibition opening at the Martin Parr Foundation in July documents the moment Constantine returned to the northern soul scene after a seven-year hiatus. She had moved to London in her 20s and hadn’t stepped foot in a club since she was living at home up North. Sent on a commission by The Face, one fateful trip to London’s infamous 100 Club in 1993 changed the course of the years to come. Open since the war, the 350-person venue is a London institution which has been home to a spectrum of the city’s subcultures since the jazz age, witnessing the blues of Muddy Waters and BB King; the birth of punk with The Sex Pistols and Siouxsie and the Banshees; and early gigs with Brit-pop icons Oasis and Blur. 

Home to a famous northern soul all-nighter since the 1980s, Constantine’s first visit to the 100 Club sparked a documentary project that saw the photographer travel to venues up and down the UK between 1993 and 1997. Largely forgotten until now, these images offer a glimpse into the heart of a dwindling hardcore community, capturing the “ritualised aerobic pleasure” of its frantic dancefloors in all their sweaty glory. Constantine worked on a BAFTA-nominated film about the scene a decade ago, titled Northern Soul, but this is the first time she is returning to her photographic archive for an exhibition.

Below, Constantine shares her memories of the fabled 100 Club:

“The 100 Club has a sort of hallowed reputation. It’s a place where a lot of bands start, like The Sex Pistols were there, and the family who own it are in their fourth generation. I think it’s the longest running club in the world, in terms of its name and having never been shut down. It was open through the jazz age, can you imagine?

“When I first went, I had no clue [about its history]. I only knew that there'd been a big punk thing there. I came to the party quite late. When Richard Benson at The Face asked me to go and cover an all-nighter, I remember thinking, ‘Shit, if I go in there, what's going to happen? Is my life going to take a different path?’ I wasn’t part of that community at that time. When I heard the music as I was going downstairs, I was just like, ‘Oh fuck.’

“There was a very intense fervor for vinyl. I was not particularly a vinyl head, so that can be quite intimidating, and it was very, very male. There were probably only a handful of female DJ collectors in that period. I also remember it being quite tight because it’s a small venue, and northern soul venues can often be massive dance halls. I remember thinking that there was a real warmth to it and a real community of hardcore people in there. I didn’t feel great about taking pictures.

“What I’ve tried to capture my entire career, or my entire life as a photographer, is a moment of abandonment and freedom” – Elaine Constantine

“The first time I went, I stayed till morning and I photographed people once the lights were on. I talked to a group of more friendly people I recognised from my previous all-nighter life. They agreed to just dance with the lights on. Then I went back next month and I started taking pictures in the dark with the flash. I got the bug and I never stopped.

“Out of all the all nighters I’ve ever been to, it’s the darkest. They actively were like, ‘We’re not having lights in here’, which was brilliant. On these record stalls where people are looking through the seven-inch boxes, they’ve got these little lamps, where people huddle down [to hunt for records]. There’s something welcoming about [the darkness], because when you’re dancing, people aren’t watching you. You can kind of get lost in it, even though it’s a kind of peacocky dance in some respects. When you’re listening to a set and it builds, nothing breaks that.

“The great thing about it for me was that even though it was ancient as a scene, it was never a revival scene. There was always a new record being turned up that no one had heard before, and maybe there were only one or two copies of it. Certain DJs were really good at finding these unknowns and breaking them on the scene. Competition between them was so fierce and many of them had one-offs that no one else knew, and they did this thing called the ‘cover up’ with a white label across the top of a record [to keep its title secret].

“One night was quite devastating for the DJ that I thought was the best, Butch. He’s one of those kinds of guys who you just can't fathom, private and not very sociable. Everything he did had this kind of myth around it, like a proper DJ should on an underground scene. Butch has few one-offs, but there was an absolutely brilliant one no one could get near, you could only hear it when he played. One night, another DJ turned up and played that record, and I just remember this kind of excitement but also devastation for the guy who'd had his cover blown.

“The book is called I’m Com’un Home In The Morn’un after an amazing record by a guy called Lou Pride. I once saw him perform it live, which was amazing. I think out of all the records that I've ever heard, it still gets me going. It still sends shivers down my spine. That record doesn’t ever get out of fashion on the scene either. I still go to the odd all-nighter, and there’s quite a lot of young people getting into northern soul now too, which is absolutely brilliant. Sometimes as an older person, you start to get curmudgeonly, don’t you? It’s nice to see the energy back on the floor and the enthusiasm.

“What I’ve tried to capture my entire career, or my entire life as a photographer, is a moment of abandonment and freedom. Northern Soul dancing is very much about that. It’s just the idea of uninterrupted joy: being part of a track and rising and falling with all the crescendos and beats. You are part of that music. I always wanted to capture that.”

I’m Com’un Home In The Morn’un is published by RRB Photobooks and is available for pre-order now. The exhibition will be on view at The Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol from July 11 – September 22, 2024.