Mike Terry: The overlooked producer behind the northern soul sound

Posted On September 6, 2025September 6, 2025

Production work rarely takes the spotlight within the musical realm; producer credits are usually relegated to a line on the back cover of an album, or maybe some small print on a record label. Within the world of soul, though, producers are just as essential to carving out the sound of the scene as the artists themselves.

One scene which has always held a deep appreciation for producers is northern soul, the footstomping community that blossomed across the all-night dancefloors of England back in the 1970s. Like musical archaeologists, the architects of northern soul were endlessly devoted to uncovering the many lost, forgotten and underappreciated voices that made up the landscape of American soul music to build eclectic homes. So, for northern DJs to find those hidden gems, they had to look out for certain artists, certain record labels, but they also had to pay attention to the producers.

After all, every producer, or at least every half-decent producer, has their own inherent sound, so in a scene where a lot of the prominent artists only had one or two releases to their name, finding a producer with whom you connect is a gateway to discovering a new wealth of floor-filling goodness. One such producer who managed to capture the attention of the northern soul scene back in its heyday was the Texan man of many talents, Mike Terry. 

A musical prodigy from a young age, Terry’s weapon of choice was the baritone saxophone, and with it he gained an unparalleled education in soul and R&B excellence throughout the 1950s and 1960s, rubbing shoulders with everybody from Jackie Wilson to Lamont Dozier, and becoming a key player in Berry Gordy’s Motown empire.

While only a teenager, the saxophonist joined the ranks of Popcorn and The Mohawks, who went on to be responsible for possibly one of the worst Motown singles of all time, ‘Custer’s Last Man’. Failed singles aside, Terry went on to become an essential part of Motown’s ever-expanding backing band, The Funk Brothers. Armed with his trusty sax, the Texan performed on a multitude of iconic hits, from The Supremes ‘Baby Love’ to Martha Reeves’ ‘Heatwave’.

Despite these many successes, though, Terry’s opportunities at Motown were limited to essentially being a session musician. So, in 1966, he began to hone his skills as a producer and arranger outside of Hitsville USA, which is how he came to influence the sound which would later define northern soul.

From his time with Ric-Tic artists like Edwin Starr or Laura Lee, both of whom became cult figures on the dancefloors of Wigan Casino and The Torch during the boom, to his staff producer contract with Okeh Records, the northern soul sound would be very different were it not for Mike Terry.

Some notable highlights within Terry’s production discography include the classic floorfiller ‘Why Girl’ by The Precisions, which he worked on shortly after leaving Motown for good in 1967, and the underrated uptempo stomper ‘Do The Whip’ by Bobby Newton, but that barely scratches the surface of the producer’s incredible career in the music industry.

Following the dying embers of the ’60s soul boom, he continued to expand his wings, producing and arranging for a wide range of projects, including the Muhammad Ali Broadway show Buck White, George Clinton’s pioneering funk outfit The Parliaments, and even a few classic soundtracks from the Blaxploitation era.

It is an egregious claim that Terry was among the most prolific and pioneering music producers in America during the late ’60s and early ’70s, but he shunned the spotlight for a quieter life before the decade was over until his eventual death in 2008. He left behind an incredible legacy of funk and soul excellence, a lot of which can still be heard regularly at your local northern soul all-nighter.

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