DAVE Godin has led what might be termed a singularly multifaceted life. Throughout the past four decades he's been a freelance journalist, penning incisive essays on numerous topics close to his heart. Principally, he's written about the music of black America, but he's also addressed animal rights issues and atheism.

At various times Dave has run a record shop in his native London and lectured in popular culture at Bretton Hall College, Yorkshire. Prior to being forced into early retirement by the chronic tiredness condition, ME, Dave Godin deployed his encyclopaedic film knowledge to the benefit of Sheffield's council-run multiple-screen movie theatre, The Anvil.

None of this would seem likely to have placed Dave Godin in history's front row - but it has, more than once.

For instance, there was yon time at Beatlemania's height when Dave, then principal columnist with Blues And Soul magazine, was backstage at primal TV pop show Ready, Steady, Go! Suddenly he found himself face to face with a Merseybeat Moptop, one George Harrison.

''I was astounded when George thanked me for my column, saying he read it every fortnight - there was largesse for you,'' recalls Dave, not unaware of the irony that Soul City, his specialist record outlet, was then the only one in swinging London which was actively spurning EMI salesmen bearing Beatles albums.

Soon afterwards, Dave's knowledge of record retailing, and soul music, resulted in him becoming the first Brit to visit the Motown label's Detroit HQ at the specific invitation of Motown's legendary founder, Berry Gordy. ''I'd written to him lamenting the fact that surefire Motown hits were being lost in Britain due to marketing failures.

''I suggested ways of Motown having UK success - and Berry replied via a four-page telegram, telling me my airline ticket was in the post.'' Within weeks Dave was Motown's sole UK rep, chumming emergent superstars like Marvin Gaye round Europe.

Not everyone's Dave's pal, though. His socialist commitment to running The Anvil as a consultative democracy repeatedly riled a reactionary Sheffield city councillor, one David Blunkett. ''I got right up his nose by programming didactic, meaningful films and holding regular cinema-goers' meetings.'' Nor is Dave Godin fond of all the famous names who've crossed his path.

Indeed, his life's greatest regret concerns a fellow former Dartford Grammar School pupil, one to whom he introduced black music. Geezer by the name of Mick . . . Mick Jagger.

But what is Dave Godin's most lasting claim to fame? It's that he invented the term ''northern soul'', thereby bringing cohesion to the all-

night dance-music movement which, after almost 30 years, won't lie down and have a wee nap.

''Deep soul'' is another Godin coinage. Slower and more reflective than northern, deep soul is exactly the timeless balm you'll find on Dave Godin's Deep Soul Treasures Taken From The Vaults Volume 1. Hence another bit of Godin history-making: Dave's choice in vintage groovery has just become the biggest-selling compilation in the Kent label's long history, having recouped its costs in soul-mad Japan alone.

Volume 2 emerges on Monday. It continues Dave's egalitarian policy of mixing names big and small as they perform tracks that are uniformly spine-tingling. Thus Otis Redding, Ben E King, and Arthur Conley rub shoulders with little-known names like Jimmy and Louise Tig and Company.

Curiously, before his monumental introduction to black American music, in 1953, Dave Godin was a classical buff. ''Pop back then was syrup, mush. Soul, or R&B as it was known, was grittier, more adult.''

Lord knows what the Rolling Stones' co-founder was into in his pre-Godin boyhood. ''I was a couple of years above Mick at school. I was the one who turned him on to black American music with Chuck Berry records and the Bo Diddley Is A Gunslinger album. But I meant him to spread the faith, not plagiarise it.''

For Dave Godin, you see, just liking the music is insufficient. It's definitely not on merely to be a soul trainspotter, someone who can recite long-ago release dates and dusty matrix numbers. Your soul-ward tendencies must also form part of an ongoing system of cultural belief and socio-political thought.

As Dave explains: ''Not that long ago at a northern soul night a young man came over and asked what it was that started me doing something on behalf of black American music in Britain 30 years ago. Without thinking, I said: 'Injustice.'''

In the US, black Americans were fighting the civil rights struggle, of course. There was iniquity closer to home, however. British labels used to suppress original records by black American artists, favouring wimpier cover versions by Brit acts, as happened with the Stones' version of It's All Over Now, a number originally written by Bobby Womack and recorded by his band, the Valentinos.

Dave Godin used to fight the good fight, usually in vain. Bessie Banks's gutsy Go Now; the Moody Blues' tinny hit cover. Compare, contrast, and weep. But while Dave couldn't prevent Wayne Fontana blanding out Major Lance's Um Um Um Um Um Um, he was able to prevent him releasing his lifeless version of Chairmen of the Board's epic, Dangling On A String, seven vital days ahead of the original. A simple phone call to one of the song's authors, ex-Motowner Brian Holland, saw to that.

Dave's invention of northern soul was similarly straightforward. ''It's taken on a magical, mythical status, but it's actually very prosaic. On Saturdays Soul City filled with northerners down for the football. Bright young Londoners slavishly followed the latest US black funk charts, whereas northerners didn't, going for pre-funk, upbeat, uptempo Chicago and Detroit records, the stereotypical northern soul sound.

''There was no radio-play then, so everyone was buying records unheard, including the shop. I used to audition each record, classifying them with a little hand-written notice for the shop's staff . . . hence 'northern soul'.''

Naturally, Soul City started its own shoestring Soul City label, quickly having a mainstream top 30 hit with Gene Chandler's northern classic, Nothing Can Stop Me. In contrast, the offshoot

Deep Soul label was spectacularly unsuccessful.

''It actually bankrupted the record shop . . . we never sold more than 20 copies of any single,'' says Dave. ''It was too specialist and esoteric.''

He was therefore somewhat reluctant last year when invited to compile a deep soul collection by long-time chums at Kent. ''I sensed there was a hidden agenda: 'Dave's given a lot to the soul scene, he's got time on his hands now - let's indulge him.' I thought it was brave of Ace to commit to two volumes, no matter how badly the first one sold.

''I felt guilty that I'd come up with something so uncommercial. I couldn't sleep the night before it was released for fear they'd sell none.'' In fact, the disc sold thousands, and Dave's already compiling Volume 3.

''One great joy is the letters I've got from artists on the CD; from the son of the late Larry Banks, from one of the Just Brothers saying that I'd spotlit the best record the band had ever made, a fitting tribute to the Just Brother who'd died.

''It's been brilliant giving some little-known artists their five minutes of glory, and to think that so many people now own these records! It's worked out in everyone's interests. Of all the things I've done in my life, I think I'm most proud of this record . . . it's almost a spiritual fulfilment.''

And that, sir, as I'm sure you knew, is what soul music means.