Dave Godin

Dave Godin

Dave Godin

b. David Edward Godin, 21st June 1936, Lambeth, South London, United Kingdom

d. 15th October 2004, Rotherham, Yorkshire, United Kingdom

Dave Godin had been in touch with me for a while now. I learned of his passing from his close friend Chris Hill, who kindly let me know that Dave had died.

I knew Dave was ill and he asked me, if I called him, could I call him at certain times of the day, which I did. If I got the moment right, we would talk for a while.

Most of the conversations I used to have with Dave concerned politics, however, when we got onto the subject of music, we spoke for hours. He discussed tracks I had never heard of (being a Southerner...even though my family roots are in Hull. LOL). I spoke about one's he had never heard of (him being a North...sorry, another Southerner!). What a team! LOL. If you could bottle Dave's musical knowledge and post it here, I would have my website hosts demanding more money for webspace!

Dave attended a Dartford Grammar School in his teens. His main claim to fame arrived via his fine columns in the Blues and Soul Publication. Dave contributed to that magazine for nearly 30 years. He was also the creator of the term 'Northern Soul'.

That term came about whilst Dave was running the Soul City store in London. Many of the store's visitors came from the North of the U.K. Dave noticed that the styles of records the people were asking for varied from those requested by Southern buyers, so Dave placed them in certain cases. When someone asked for a record, who happened to come from the North of the U.K., Dave would ask his assistant to 'dig out the Northern Soul'. Thus the term was born."