History of Chicago House Music

[David Liam]

#11228 |

History of Chicago House Music

MUSIC IS THE KEY….”The beat won’t stop with the JM Jock. If he jacks the box and the partyrocks. The clock tick tocks and the place gets hot. So ease your mind and set yourself free. To that mystifying music they call the key”.

-Music Is The Key, JM Silk, 1985

	House is as new as the microchip and as old as the hills. It first came to

	widespread attention in the summer of 1986 when a rash of records imported

	directly from Chicago began to dominate the playlist of Europe’s most

	influential DJs. Within a matter of months, with virtually no support

	from the national radio networks, Britain’s club scene voted with its 

	feet, three house records forced their way into the top ten. Farley

	“Jackmaster” Funk “Love Can’t Turn Around”, Raze’s “Jack The Groove”, and

	Steve “Silk” Hurley “Jack Your Body”, gave the club scene a new buzz-word,

	jacking, the term used by Chicago dancers to describe the frantic body

	pace of the House Sound. Whole litany of Jack Attacks beseiged the 

	music scene. Bad Boy Bill’s “Jack It All Night Long”, Femme Fion’s “Jack

	The House”, Chip E’s “Time To Jack”, and Julian “Jumpin” Perez “Jack Me

	Till I Scream”.

	House music takes its name from an old Chicago night club called The

	Warehouse, where the resident DJ, Frankie Knuckles, mixed old disco

	classics, new Eurobeat pop and synthesised beats into a frantic high-

	energy amalgamation of recycled soul. Frankie is more than a DJ, he’s

	an architect of sound, who has taken the art of mixing to new heights.

	Regulars at the Warehouse remember it as the most atmospheric place in 

	Chicago, the pioneering nerve-center of a thriving dance music scene where

	old Philly classics by Harold Melvin, Billy Paul and The O’Jays were

	mixed with upfront disco hits like Martin Circus’ “Disco Circus” and

	imported European pop music by synthesiser groups like Kraftwerk and 

	Telex.

	One of the club’s regular faces was a mysterious young black teenager

	who styled himself on the eccentric funk star George Clinton. Calling

	himself Professor Funk, he would dress to shock, and stay at the 

	Warehouse through the night, until the very last record was back in

	Frankie’s box. Professor Funk is now a recording artist. He appears on

	stage dressed in the full regalaia of an old world English King singing

	weird acidic house records like “Work your Body” and “Visions”. The 

	Professor believes that the excitement of house music can be traced back

	to the creativity of The Warehouse.

	The Professor’s memories carry a hidden truth. The decadent beat of 

	Chicago House, a relentless sound designed to take dancers to a new

	high, it has its origins in the gospel and its future in spaced out

	simulation(techno).

	In the mid 1970’s, when disco was still an underground phenomeon, sin

	and salvation were willfully mixed together to create a sound which

	somehow managed to be decadent and devout. New York based disco labels,

	like Prelude, West End, Salsoul, and TK Disco, literally pioneered a

	form of orgasmic gospel, which merged the sweeping strings of Philadelphia

	dance music with the tortured vocals of soul singers like Loleatta

	Holloway. Her most famous releases, “Love Sensation” and “Hit and Run”

	became working models for modern house records. After an eventful career

	which began in Atlanta and the southren gospel belt, Loleatta joined

	Salsoul Records during the height of the metropolitan disco boom, before

	returning to her hometown of Chicago.

	According to Frankie Knuckles, house is not a break with the black music

	of the past, but an extreme re-invention of the dance music of yesterday.

	He sees House music with a very clear tradition, a kind of two-way love

	affair with the city of New York and the sound of disco. If he were to 

	list his favorite records, they would be a reader’s guide to disco, 

	including Colonel Abrams “Trapped”, Sharon Redd’s “Can You Handle It”,

	Fat Lerry’s “Act Like You Know”, Positive Force “You Got The Funk”

	Jimmy Bo Horn “Spank”, D-Train “You’re The One”. But most of all he

	relishes the sound where the church and the dancefloor are thrown

	together with a willful disregard for religious propriety.

	Religion weaves its way through the house sound in ways that would 

	confound the disbelievers. Most Chicago DJ’s admit a debt to the 

	underground 1970’s underground club scene in New York and particulary the

	original disco-mixer Walter Gibbons, a white DJ who popularised the 

	basic techniques of disco-mixing, then graduated to Salsoul Records where

	he turned otherwise unremarkable dance records into monumental sculptures

	of sound.

	It was Gibbons who paved the way for the disc-jockey’s historical shift

	from the twin-decks to the production studio. But ironically, at the 

	height of his cult popularity, he drifted away from the decadent heat of

	disco to become a “Born Again Christian”, having created a space which

	was ultimately filled by subsequent DJ Producers like Jellybean Benitez,

	Shep Pettibone, Larry Levan, Arthur Baker, Francois Kervorkian, The 

	Latin Rascals, and Farley “Jackmaster” Funk.

	Most people believed that Walter Gibbons was a fading legend in the early

	history of disco, then in 1984 he resurfaced, and had a new and immediate

	impact on the development of Chicago House Sound. Gibbons released an

	independent 12″ record called “Set It Off” which started to create a stir

	at Paradise Garage, the black gay club in New York, where Larry LeVan

	presided over the wheels of steel. Within weeks a “Set It Off” craze 

	spread through the club scene, including new versions by C.Sharp, 

	Masquerade, and answer versions like Import Number 1’s “Set It Off(Party

	Rock)”. The original record had been “mixed with love by Walter Gibbons”

	and was released on the Jus Born label, a tongue in cheek reference to

	Walter’s christianity. Gibbons had set the tone again, the “Set It Off”

	sound was primitive House, haunting, repetitive beats ideal for mixing

	and extending. It immediately became an underground club anthem, finding

	a natural home in Chicago, where a whole generation of DJ’s including

	Farley and Frankie Knuckles, rocked the clubs and regularly played on 

	local radion stations.

	For major house stars like Frankie Knuckles, the disco consul is a 

	pulpit and the DJ is a high priest. The dancers are a fanatical

	congreation who will dance until dawn, and in some cases demand that

	the music goes on in an unbroken surge for over 18 hours. Mixing is

	a religion.

	Old records like First Choice’s “Let No Man Put Asunder” and Candido’s

	“Jingo” , Shirley Lites “Heat You Up(Melt You Down)”, Eurobeat dance

	records by Depeche Mode, The Human League, BEF, Telex, and New Order, the

	speeches of Martin Luther King, and the sound effects of speeding express

	trains were all used when Frankie Knuckles controlled the decks. And the

	high priest of house had many desciples. On the southside of Chicago, a

	young teenager called Tyree Cooper, was intrigued by Frankie’s use of the

	speeches of Martin Luther King. He raided his mother’s record collection

	and discovered a record by local preacher, The Rev. T.L. Barrett Jr. 

	whose choir at the Chicago Church of Universal Awareness were the pride

	of the city. Tyree began using the record at local House parties and

	within a few months, sermon mixing, the art of splicing short gospel

	speeches over frantic dance music, became an established part of the

	Chicago DJ’s art.

	It didn’t end their. Tyree Cooper joined DJ International Records, 

	ultimately releasing “I Fear The Night”, and back home at his mother’s

	church, the choir were beginning to excited about one of their featured

	vocalists. A gigantic college trained vocalist, Darryl Pandy was boasting

	about his new record. He had left the choir a few weeks before to sing

	lead vocals on Farley “Jackmaster” Funk’s “Love Can’t Turn Around”, which

	against all odds was racing to the number 1 spot on British charts. House

	had its roots in gospel and its future mapped out.

	The international success of House came against all known odds. New York

	and Los Angeles were firmly established as the music capitals of the USA

	and there was virtually no room for small regional records to make a

	national impact. According to Keith Nunnally of JM Silk, Chicago turned

	their limitations into an advantage, turning the poverty of resources

	into a richness of musical experiment.

	Despite technical drawbacks, a whole wave of new independent dance labels

	sprung up in Chicago. The declaration of independence was led by Rocky

	Jones DJ International label, a relatively small company which grew out

	of a DJ Record distribution pool spreading from a small warehouse near

	Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing project, to become one of the trans-

	national dance scene’s most influential labels.

	At the 1986 New Music seminar in New York, DJ International roster of

	artists stole the show, as every major label made frantic bids to buy

	a piece of the house action. Within a matter of a few days, records by

	the diminutive House DJ Chip E, the sophisticated gospel singer Shawn

	Christopher and the outrageous Daryl Pandy were sold round the world.

	At the height of the bidding, JM Silk signed to RCA records for an

	undisclosed fortune. The commercial evidence of tracks like “Music Is

	The Key” and “Shadows of Your Love” proved that House music had the

	energy and excellence to move from being a regional cult to a modern

	international success. Within a matter of months every music paper in the

	world was praying at the feet of Chicago House.

	Although the first wave of interest focused on the DJ International label

	and particulary the unlikely duo of Farley, a legendary Chicago DJ, and

	his opera trained vocalist Daryl Pandy, it soon became apparent that 

	their hit “Love Can’t Turn Around” was only the peak of mid-Western 

	iceberg. Chicago was alive with musicians. Local radio stations like

	WGCI and WBMX rocked to the music of the “Hot Mix 5”, a group of DJ’s who

	mixed whole nights of dance music without uttering a word and clubs like

	The Power Plant stayed open all-night carrying the torch once held by 

	The Warehouse.

	Locked in local competition with DJ International were a hundred other

	labels. The most important was Trax on North Clark Street, a label which

	ultimately went on to release some of house music’s recognised classics.

	Marshall Jefferson gave Trax two of its most important records, the 

	hectic 120 BPM “Move Your Body” and the follow up “Ride The Rhythm”. His

	reputation was rivalled by Adonis, who released “No Way Back”. The second

	biggest selling record Trax has ever issued, a record which reportedly

	sold over 120,000 copies, a staggering number for an independent record

	which received very little air play.

	Behind the visible success story of DJ International, Underground, Trax,

	were countless smaller labels like Jes Say, Chicago Connectinon, Bright

	Star, Dance Mania, Sunset, House Records, Hot Mix 5, State Street, and

	Sound Pak. And behind the stars like Farley and Frankie Knuckles are

	numerous other musicians, like Full House, Ricky Dillard, Fingers Inc.

	and Farm Boy.

	House music has spread throughout the world. It has spread to Detroit

	where Transmat Records released Derrick May’s Rhythim Is Rhythim record

	at the Metroplex Studio laying down post-Kraftwerk tracks like “Nude

	Photo” and “Strings”. It has spread to New York, where the respected club

	producer Arthur Baker has been given a new lease on life, recording

	unapologetic dance records like Criminal Elements “Put The Needle To The

	Record” and Jack E. Makossa. It has spread to London where a gang of 

	renegade funk boys called M/A/R/R/S took the British charts by storm,

	climbing to Number 1 with the brillant collage record “Pump Up The

	Volume”. It has spread into the very heart of pop music, encouraging

	Phil Fearon, Kissing The Pink, Beatmasters and Mel and Kim to turn

	the beat around. And it has infilitrated into already dynamic cultures

	like the Latin and Hispanic dance scene creating new possibilites for

	Kenny “Jammin'” Jason, Ralphi Rosario, Mario Diaz, Julian “Jumpin” Perez,

	Mario Reyes and Two Puerto Ricans, A Blackman, and A Dominican. Chicago

	house has become everyones House. House music is a universal language.

	Given the undoubted international popularity of the Chicago sound, it

	would have been easy for the producers of House music to rest on their

	laurels and continually reproduce more of the same. For a while the city

	stuck firmly to its identifiable beat – hardcore on the one – but the

	experimentation which gave birth to House inevitably wanted to change it.

	By 1987 a new style of House music began to escape from Chicago’s

	recording studios. It was a “deep”, highly sophisticated sound, which

	evoked strange, almost drug-induced images. The second generation House

	sound probably began with the international success of Phutures’s “Acid

	Tracks” a hugely influential record, which captured the extreme spirit

	of the House scene’s most ardent adherents, the hardcore dancer in 

	Chicago, who variously experimented with LSD, acid psychedelia and new

	designer drugs like Ectasy.

	Frankie Knuckles has been careful not to sensationalise the influence of

	drugs. “Today there is more psychedlic sound. Acid is probably the most

	prevelant drug on the scene, but House is no druggier than any other

	scene”.

	None of House music’s prominent performers have advocated drug abuse nor

	set out to glorify chemical stimulation, but an increasing number of 

	Chicago records have controversially referred to acid tracking, the

	estranged synthesiser sound you can hear on several house releases.

	These Acid Tracks have taken house music into a new phuturism, a modern

	uptempo psychedelia that London club DJ’s call Trance Dance. The roots

	of Trance Dance are not to be found in the more established traditions

	of 60’s psychedelic rock but ironically in 1970’s Europe, through highly

	synthesised records like Kraftwerk’s “Trans Europe Express” and “Numbers”.

	The trance-dance sound is only beginning to establish on the Chicago Scene

	but it has already been adopted in British Clubs and will undoubtedly

	shape the new phuture of house.

	But beneath the abstract surface of acid-track house records is the same

	compulsive dance command. Frankie Knuckles is sure of that. “When people

	hear house rhythms they go freak out. It’s an instant dance reaction. If

	you can’t dance to House you’re already dead”

	-Stuart Cosgrove for The History of House Sound of Chicago 12 record set

	  on BCM records, Germany, Out of Print

	Inevitably, it was the restless London club scene and the illegal pirate

	radio stations of urban Britain that seized on the real potential of 

	house. The relatively cheap and do-it-yourself ethics which governed

	house production meant that young DJ’s with inexpensive equipment could

	make records that were fresher and faster than the more institutionalized

	major labels. A series of sampled and stolen sounds, released on small

	scale British independent labels took the popcharts by storm, suprising

	the record industry and demonstrating that the house sound had a 

	commercial appeal beyond even the wild imagination of the London club

	scene. In the spring of 1988 a small group of London based DJ’s traded

	their turntables for the recording studios. Tim Simenon, working under

	the club pseudonym Bomb The Bass and Mark Moore using the band name

	S-Express had unexpected pop hits with sampled house rhythms. “Beat Dis”

	and “The Theme From S-Express” were charateristic of the sound that

	creative theft and sampling could achieve. DJ’s with huge record

	collections and a catalogue knowledge of breaks, beats, bits and pieces

	could string together an entirely new record concocted out of barely

	rememberal records. The masters of the London sampling scene were two

	unlikely DJ’s, Jonathan Moore and Matt Black, who played under the name

	DJ Coldcut and devastated London’s pirate airwaves with imaginative

	record choices, crazy mixes and a wilful disregard for what made

	musical sense.

	When Coldcut’s remix of Eric B and Ra-Kim rap hit “I Know You Got Soul”

	took the ungrateful New Yorkers to Number 1 in the pop charts in Europe

	it became obvious that sampling and the spirit of “Pump Up The Volume”

	was here to stay. The Coldcut rap mix was closely followed by the more

	house orientated “Doctorin The House” which featured Yazz and The Plastic

	People, than a cover version of Otis Clay’s “The Only Way Is Up”, an

	obscure soul sound which was big on Britain’s esoteric northern soul

	scene. By a strange twist of history, and old Chicago soul singer from

	the 60’s had his career momentarily revitalised by the fallout of the

	modern Chicago house sound.

	By the summer of 1988, the British charts and teh over zealous tabloid

	press were over-run with acid. The music had clearly touched a raw pop

	nerve as one by one underground acid-house records stormed into the 

	pop press. But their unexpected commercial success was pursued by

	controversy and daily press reports that the acid-house scene was a 

	dangerous focus for drug abuse. Each new day brought increased public

	panic about the abuse of the synthetically compounded Ecstasy drug and

	by October 1988, acid house and its casual catch phrases “get on one 

	matey”, “can you feel it”, and “we call it acieeeeed” were in everyday

	conversation. The controversy reached its head in the autumn of press

	overkill when “We Call It Acieed” by D. Mob reached number 1 on the

	British pop charts. Radio stations were reluctant to play the record,

	BBC’s phone in program, “daytime” had a nationwide debate on the 

	acceptability of the song, and in a fit of moral outrage, the Burton’s

	clothes chain withdrew smiley tee-shirts from their stores and refused

	to participate in the acid epidemic.

	Behind the hype and the press hostility the music continued its journey

	of unparalled progress. If acid house had troubled the mainstream press

	it had also advanced the creativity of music introducing the remarkable

	and prodigious talent of Brooklyn’s Todd Terry to the forefront of the

	underground dance music scene.

	Todd Terry is a child of house. His whole life spent buried in club

	culture and experimenting with the extremes of hi-tech music. Under the

	pseudonym Swan Lake, Martin Luther King’s spiritual dream is turned into

	a dance floor drama, as Royal House’s “Can You Party” and The Todd Terry

	Project “Just wanna Dance” catches the garage spirit of modern house.

	-Stuart Cosgrove for The History of House Sound of Chicago

	  The Story Continues…   BCM Records, Germany  Out OF Print