Page 43 - DemoZone Magazine Issue 003

R.I.P.
"THE GODFATHER OF HOUSE MUSIC" ONE YEAR ON
Mass Order’s “Lift Every Voice” from 1992 opens with the lines ‘Started out, the Windy City, sooner or later it caught on a few....Let’s Give Thanks To The One Who Started It All!’. If you are on social media you will have noticed countless friends and contacts ‘giving thanks to the one that started it all’ since Tuesday morning. That being, Frankie Knuckles. Whether you realise it or not, if you have enjoyed any form of electronic dance music over the last 35 years , you have Frankie to thank for drawing up the blue prints. The passing of Frankie Knuckles has affected the very fibre of club and dance culture worldwide and as Tuesday dawned it was apparent that it was not in fact an April fools prank and the true originator of this thing we call House had passed away at age 59.
Frankie Knuckles was born Francis Nicholls in the Bronx, NYC on January 18th 1955, along with his boyhood friend Lawrence Philpot. They grew up in New York’s vibrant Disco culture of the late 60’s and early 70’s. Philpot changed his name to Levan and went on to develop the modern clubbing experience through his disco nights in Reade Street and The Paradise Garage . Nicholls changed his name to the similar sounding Knuckles, moved to Chicago in 1977 and through his Warehouse and Power Plant nights he happened upon a new form of music which became affectionately known as ‘House’ music, i.e. music Frankie played at the Warehouse.
By 1981 the disco back lash was well and truly in full flight and disco was declared dead, with record companies getting as fast away from Disco as possible. The up-tempo dance records Frankie liked to drive his clubbers wild with were gone, replaced with a new downtempo sound. In order to feed his dancefloor Frankie started to experiment a reel to reel tape , taking tracks and re editing them, extending the intros and the middle breaks to make them work better for his dancers. His experiments continued and aided with a Roland 909 drum machine he bought from Derrick May (the Techno pioneer) Knuckles started to play these edits he made with the 909 drum machine at the club and these tracks became what we now know as House. Of course Frankie started not only a new musical movement, but a whole sub culture and way of living. “House is a feeling, house is a vibe” as Sandy Rivera rapped in “Living Me” (off his album the Calling with Jose Burgos). House became a reference for being “with it”, for example if you wore Girbaud baggy jeans you were “House” ,if you listened to music like Loleatta Holloway you were “House” whereas attitudes like aggression and bad manners were definitely NOT “House”. Record stores in Chicago and even venues in Chicago and the Illinois suburbs put up signs saying “House Music Inside” or “We Play ‘House
Music” of course referring to the music that Frankie played at the Warehouse (it is only fair that Ron Hardy gets a mention here as well, his night ran in tandem with the Warehouse on alternate weekend nights in Chicago and was called The Music Box pioneering a similar sound)
What Frankie Knuckles also did for underground music was inspire the people who went to his parties and heard his mixes, to make their own music in their HOUSE. Clubbers in Chicago started to collect basic equipment and make their own music, which was effectively “disco for amateurs” and started to give Frankie (and Hardy) tapes to play at the club of their own “compositions” .
Two of the most notable and influential were Jesse Saunders and a young man called Byron Walton. Walton, an accomplished musician who called himself “Jamie Principal” handed in a cassette of “Your Love” to Frankie one night and it became the classic jam it is today. The less “accomplished” Saunders more or less “had a go” at making a basic record and it became the seminal House classic “On and On” . More so Saunders record showed kids in Chicago that a track could be made with very little talent and equipment and if Jesse Saunders could have a hit?, Most likely so could they.
This of course would lead to tracks like Marshall Jefferson’s “Move Your Body” and Adonis ‘No Way Back” and as we know these sounds crossed the Atlantic to the UK (where they were received much better than the USA) and this musical movement continues to inspire producers and DJs to this very day. Knuckles went on to do his own stellar remixes and productions with the likes of David Morales and this in itself was the soundtrack of 90s clubbing for many people, with tracks like Allison Limerick – Where Love Lives , Satoshi Tomiie – Tears and The Night writers “Let The Music Use You” becoming instant classics and remixes for superstars such as Michael Jackson(he changed Rock With You into an entirely different style of record!), Whitney Houston, Pet Shop Boys, EnVouge and countless others .Knuckles enjoyed a resurgence of late under the guise of Directors Cut (with Eric Kupper) and made some outstanding music with legends like Candi Station and Sybil and once again Jamie Principal.
Frankie played his last DJ set only a week ago at Rulin’s 20th Anniversary party at Ministry of Sound in London, where he had spun many times over his career since 1991.Friend and fellow legend/pioneer Jazzy M, remembers seeing Frankie using the American technique of extending records by flitting between two copies of the vinyl “...the first time I saw him was at London’s Astoria at a gig called The Trip he was playing tunes that seemed to go on for a lot longer than normal so when I went to see why, it was because he was playing 2 copies going from dub to vox etc. and that was the first time I’d seen true American smooth style mixing ever. He was no doubt a class act and great human being “Rales paid a heartfelt tribute to him saying “He was a brother, a mentor, a friend and my king. I
am very fortunate to have been able to spend so many incredible moments with him. We travelled the world together. We laughed,, we cried and we danced together so many times... We’ve mixed and produced many records together. Together we created the “DEF MIX” sound. I can only describe Frankie in one word....EPIC
Legend in his own right, CJ Mackintosh reflected on Frankie’s influence and mentorship “Frankie not only inspired me as a DJ, Remixer & Producer from the mid to late 80’s onwards but judging by all the messages I have seen so far, he has inspired each & every one of you in some way or another regardless of what music style you are into...I have been so lucky to have played alongside him on many nights over the years.
I used to call him Jack as in: In the beginning there was jack and jack had a groove....He would always chuckle at that”
So many tributes and showings of affection this last few days for a man whose legacy reverberates around the world in dance clubs, radio stations and headphones right at this very moment.
One of the tributes I read said “Frankie Knuckles RIP, The day the music died” I however disagree with that, House music will never die, What Frankie started was bigger than the sum of its parts, it wasn’t only about music coming from a set of loud speakers, it was about black and white, straight and gay, rich and poor,old and young coming together under one groove – House music was and is a unifying force, it is a sense of community, a sense of belonging on par with any Church or fellowship. This is why it hit people so hard when Frankie passed away. Whenever a thundering 4/4 beat comes through the speakers and people throw their hands in the air, letting the music erode whatever cares and worries they have in their life, taking them to a better place through sound and dancing TOGETHER, Frankie will be there in the spirit of that moment, his musical experiment that changed the lives of so many living on and on and on and on.
Tonight should you go out, to a bar, a ritzy, a nightclub, an underground dance club or even a house party raise a glass of your choosing to the man that is the Godfather of House.
Frankie Knuckles. Let’s get back to the original vibe of unity that Frankie cultivated through House music.
Niall Redmond’s 5 Essential Frankie Knuckles Productions
Allison Limerick – Where Love Lives (Classic Mix) Sound Of Blackness – The Pressure (Classic Mix) Sybil – Troubled Waters (Directors Cut Gagathon Mix)
Frankie Knuckles ft Roberta Gilliam – Work Out (Workin Dub)
Michael Jackson – Rock With You (Frankie Knuckles Remix)
Words By Niall Redmond
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