AS music enthusiasts celebrate the 50th birthday of Tamla Motown, there have been tributes to Bexleyheath man David Godin,who is credited with bringing the music to the notice of a mass British audience.
Mr Godin, who died aged 68, of lung cancer in Sheffield in 2004, was also responsible for introducing Rolling Stone Mick Jagger to American rhythm and blues, something he later said he regretted.
The son of a milkman, Mr Godin was a contemporary of Jagger’s at Dartford Grammar School.
He discovered black American music when, at the age of 16, he heard builders working at a Bexleyheath ice cream parlour, playing the music on a brand new American juke box.
Mr Godin set up the Tamla Motown Appreciation Society in the UK and was invited to America to meet the founder of the Motown sound Berry Gordy.
He returned home as a paid consultant for the company.
Mr Godin opened a Soul City record shop in Deptford and coined the name Northern Soul, for the music emerging in places such as Manchester.
He was also a vegan, an animal rights campaigner, writer, film maker and founded his own record label.
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