A COLLABORATION of York DJs will celebrate the music of black America this weekend, playing rare and sometimes forgotten vinyl discs by artists from the Mississippi Delta to the ghettos of Chicago and Detroit in the riverside café bar at City Screen.

Saturday’s Waterfront Blues & Soul Club Spectacular is a new chapter for both the DJs and the Picturehouse cinema in Coney Street, York. “In regard to the Northern Soul and Modernist scenes in the UK, this a new concept, endeavouring to encapsulate the music, styles, passions ands culture of the 1960s and 1970s while bringing them up to and beyond the 21st century,” says event promoter and DJ Jay Cee, alias Jason Chinnian.

“For City Screen, this will provide some relaxing entertainment for their clientele and bring in many new faces to experience all the venue has to offer.”

The Waterfront Blues & Social Club has been working closely with City Screen to provide something new for Saturday nights, so here comes a “proper, up-tempo blues and soul night with the emphasis firmly on dancing to the music”.

Saturday’s inaugural event will start at 8pm in the café bar with a “Warm Up”, followed by the 8.15pm screening of Standing In The Shadows Of Motown, a documentary about the Funk Brothers. The soul club will take over the main bar overlooking the River Ouse from 10pm to 2am and the bar will remain open until that time too, serving real ales, continental lagers and more besides.

“We’ll have two guest DJs to add more variation to the soulful mix: Andy Lewis, Paul Weller’s bass player, from Acid Jazz Records, and Raphi Scorcher, from Lava Records and Brussels FM,” says Jay Cee. Look out too for Lewis doing a record signing on the night.

The new club aims to build on the successful night staged earlier this year when City Screen showed the Wigan Casino/Northern Soul film Soulboy and Jay Cee staged a Northern Soul night afterwards with fellow DJs Barry Forth, Andy Bellwood and guest Andy Lewis.

“We held it in the main bar area, where there’s a fabulous wooden dance floor, glass-panelled ceiling and private, very cool riverside terrace, where you can sit and relax as the river flows by,” recalls Jay Cee. “In fact a few ‘soulies’ were seen dancing on the terrace and looking at their reflections in the glass windows!”

Looking forward to Saturday’s club debut, Jay Cee says: “The idea is to play a fabulous selection of soulful music in a contemporary and upmarket venue where people can really let themselves go and so can we, the DJs, by playing more up-tempo grooves.

“We’re also looking at this as a cultural event because by showing a blues soul and jazz-related film followed by a music event, it becomes a visual and sound spectacular in the heart of the city in an awesome contemporary location.

“It will give people a greater understanding of the world’s musical heritage and how relevant and influential it still is today here in the UK, as well as highlighting many people’s passion that still burns brightly for all things soulful. This is a very exciting time for the soul scene.”

Tickets are available at £5 on 0871 902 5726, online at picturehouses.co.uk/York and on the door.