Woodbridge Festival Brings Pioneering Brit Soul And Funk Stars Home To Suffolk For Super Fly

Woodbridge Festival of Art and Music invited legendary 1960s soul singer, Geno Washington, and pioneering 1970s funk DJ, Les Spain, to headline the festival’s ‘Super Fly’ theme for 2025.

Geno Washington, the early Brit Soul star celebrated in Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ hit Geno, played Woodbridge for the first time since he was based at USAF Woodbridge and Bentwaters in the early 1960s. Geno returned to Woodbridge for the first time since 1965. His appearance also marks 60 years since he first played Ipswich’s ground breaking Bluseville club.

Pioneering 1970s UK funk DJ Les Spaine was back in Suffolk 50 years after he first played Suffolk’s US airforce bases. At the time resident at Liverpool’s 2000 capacity all night funk club Timepiece, and the UK’s biggest national funk club DJ, Les went on to become the first UK representative for Motown records; working with everyone from Stevie Wonder to Marvin Gaye, The Jacksons and Smokey Robinson.

Super Fly is the first project to explore the hidden history that US airforce bases in Suffolk played in the development of UK music from the 1950s to the 1990s. Between this period the numbers of USAF personnel in Suffolk accounted for one in seven people living in the county.

Pioneering UK funk DJ Les Spaine says: "Super Fly is investigating the influence that the USAF played in bringing American black music into the UK via Suffolk airforce bases, and the influence this had on music in the UK. I have agreed to be a principle representative for the project and will be adding to the interviews Ben Osborne has already done with me to help build the overall narrative. I look forward to seeing the far reaching results of this project come to fruition."

Noise of Art and Woodbridge Festival are grateful for support for Super Fly from East Suffolk District Council Councillor Rachel Smith Lyte, Suffolk Building Society, The CO-OP, MSC, Suffolk Windrush Select Committee, Suffolk New College and more partnerships to be announced.

Woodbridge Festival founder, Ben Osborne, who started researching Super Fly in 2018 and held the project’s first public events in 2021, says the Super Fly highlights an important and over-looked cultural history: "Everyone knows the role shipping ports played in bringing American black music into Liverpool, London and other major cities. The accepted history is this paved the way for the Beatles, Rolling stones and Led Zeppelin - bands that changed international music culture. But Super Fly celebrates a hidden rural history of urban music - where USAF bases brought American black music culture into the UK through Suffolk. This hidden history is well known locally and will hopefully now become recognised further afield."