that would be a good answer to the question "soulful funk, if that makes sense?" rather than to my parents, never having heard of Funk
they have soul, that's not the point

If it's Soul It's Laid Back. If it's Funk you can't sit down.

Soul moves your heart and mind. Funk moves your body!

Not strictly true.

Northern does both.

I have got a couple of Northern Soul albums recently. Unfortunately they are not tagged well :(

Wigan Casino 25th Anniversary
Wigan Pier vol 24 Mixed By Micky B
The Wigan Casino Story.

The Wigan Pier stuff isn't Northern. It's House?
The Wigan Casino Story is a great album with some solid Northern standards mostly from the late 60's.
The Golden Torch Story is one I'd recommend to anyone and one of the best IMO. Worth getting as a starter.

So it is- blame my old man, he sent me some stuff through and he said it was all Northern Soul :(

Got a link to The Golden Torch story at all?

I'll post a link to a compilation of Northern standards to give you a taster tomorrow.
I've been on the sauce tonight so I'd probably make an arse of it.

I always thought of James' music as "progressive soul" or an "extension" of soul which is what funk was. Now because of everybody's insistence that all music be labeled into sub-categories, he's considered more funk because most of his songs consist of hypnotic, hardcore funk grooves rather than traditional song form that soul would fall under.

I voted "Soul," My era for Soul is in the 60's & 70's. My favorite vocal groups are The Stylistics, Chi-lites, Blue Magic, & Harold Marvin & The Blue Notes. And my favorite female singers are Marilyn McCoo, Dionne Warwick, & Carla Thomas - I know they're not strictly Soul, they also do other R&B and Pop. They may not be the first to come to mind when talking about Soul but they're my favorite.