Soul-boy Stuart completes

Perth-raised journalist and broadcaster Stuart Cosgrove explains to why he hopes the third and final part of his series of books on soul music will become part of social history

Harlem: The very name conjures up stereotypical images of young black men, crime, drug dealing and poverty in one of the historically most notorious parts of New York City. Yet when Perth-raised journalist, broadcaster and author Stuart Cosgrove was researching the third part of his soul trilogy Harlem 69: The Future of Soul, he discovered that while Harlem has indeed been left stigmatised by the ravages of crime, gangsters and a darkly vengeful drug problem – the “debris” of which still exist – the neighbourhood has increasingly become gentrified in the 21st Century and has continued to develop as an intellectual centre of black American thought.

Stuart’s love of soul music and social history dates back to his youth when he was a fanzine writer on the northern soul scene before joining the black music paper Echoes, as a staff writer.

He became media editor with the once mighty music bible NME and a feature writer for a range of newspapers and magazines.

The award-winning broadcaster, probably best known as the co-host of BBC Radio Scotland’s popular comedy football phone-in Off the Ball, joined Channel 4 in 1994, serving for eight years as Controller of Arts and Entertainment and then as Head of Programme (Nations and Regions) until stepping down in 2015.

But it was his appetite for life after Channel 4 and his desire to continue his soul music journey that spurred on the holder of a Doctorate in English and American Studies to research and write The Soul Trilogy – three books encapsulating soul music and social change in three American cities during three crucial years.

Detroit 67, published in 2015, was the first instalment followed by Memphis 68: The Tragedy of Southern Soul which was announced as the winner of the prestigious Penderyn Music Book Prize in April, with Harlem 69 to be published on October 4.

While it’s been a musical journey for him, Stuart, 65, hopes all three books will also stand the test of time as works of social history.

“When I first started thinking about it,” explained Stuart, “I had gone along and watched the movie Dreamgirls with one of my mates – a big soul fan I grew up with in Perth – and we got talking when we left the cinema as to whether Florence Ballard of The Supremes had really been sacked by Motown at the height of the Detroit riots.

“I said, ‘look, I’m going to research this – I’ll find out, blah blah blah’.

“I was looking around for a big writing project – I was getting to the stage where I was looking for an ‘escape clause’ from Channel 4 and was looking for a big idea to work on. When I started to research that I realised just how prescient the political and social issues were at the time and how soul music sat alongside them.

“I began with Detroit 67 as the opener because in many ways it was the beginning of change if you like with the great soul music of the mid-60s – The Supremes, Four Tops and all of that stuff – and having to face up to quite difficult issues around race and racism around the riots, difficult inner city issues.”

Stuart did a lot of desk research and made several visits to Detroit where he spent a lot of time researching local newspapers in libraries. He found compelling stories from the time that also seemed to connect to the soul scene one way or another.

He found what he was learning was really exciting.

But he had another thought that took him back to his days at the NME where he’d always argued that black music had never really been given the same respect and dignity as rock music had.

“I kind of felt ‘if you don’t write about

The book’s also about the roots of disco, the roots of hip hop – all the forms of soul music.