The Beginnings of House MusicIt all started in Chicagos Southside in 1977,when a new kind of club opened. This new Chicago club called The Warehouse gave Housemusic its name.
The Warehouse was a nightclub established in Chicago, Illinois in 1977 under the direction of Robert Williams. It is today most famous for being what many consider to be the birthplace of house music, specifically Chicago house, and the genre's center in the United States while under its first musical director, DJ Frankie Knuckles. Clubbing in Chicago RA takes a closer look at a scene steeped in history. When I started talking to people about clubbing in Chicago, everyone had strong opinions—but also some ambivalence: Chicago has a vibrant dance scene, although the crowds aren't very big and it can feel rather fragmented.
Frankie Knuckles, who opened The Warehouse, mixed old disco classics andnew Eurobeat pop. It was at this legendary club where many of the experiments were tried.It was also where Acid House got its start.House was the first direct descendant of disco. In comparison with disco, Housewas 'deeper', 'rawer', and more designed to make people dance. Discohad already produced the first records to be aimed specifically at DJs with extended12' versions that included long percussion breaks for mixing purposes. The early 80sproved a vital turning point.
Sinnamons 'Thanks To You', D-Trains'You're The One For Me', and The Peech Boys 'Dont Make Me Wait',a record that has been continually sampled over the last decade, took things in adifferent direction with their sparse, synthesised sounds that introduced dub effects anddrop-outs that had never been heard before.House music did not have its origins just in American music. The popularity ofEuropean music, specifically English electronic pop like Depeche Mode and Soft Cell andthe earlier, more disco-based sounds of Giorgio Moroder, Klein & MBO, as well asItalian productions, they all gave rise to House music. Two clubs, the already mentionedChicagos Warehouse and New Yorks Paradise Garage, which promoted Europeanmusic, had at the same time broken the barriers of race and sexual preference (for Housemusic was in part targeted at the gay community). Before The Warehouse opened, there hadbeen clubs strictly designed to segregate race. However, The Warehouse did not make anydifference between Blacks, Hispanics, or Whites; the main interest was simply music. Andthe music was as diverse as the clients. One of the leading DJs at that time was New York born Frankie Knuckles, alsocalled the Godfather of House. Indeed, he was more than a DJ; he was an architect ofsound, who experimented with sounds and thus added a new dimension to the art of mixing.In fact, he took the raw material of the disco he spun and added pre-programmed drumtracks to create a constant 4/4 tempo.
He played eight to ten hours a night, and thedancers came home exhausted. Thanks to him The Warehouse was regarded as the mostatmospheric place in Chicago. The uniqueness of this club lay in a simple mixing of oldPhilly classics by Harold Melvin, Billy Paul and The OJays with disco hits likeMartin Circus 'Disco Circus' and imported European pop music bysynthesiser groups like Kraftwerk and Telex.Frankie said, 'When we first opened in 1977, I was playing a lot of the EastCoast records, the Philly stuff, Salsoul. By 80/81, when that stuff was all overwith, I started working a lot of the soul that was coming out.
I had to re-construct therecords to work for my dancefloor, to keep the dancefloor happy, as there was no dancemusic coming out! Id take the existing songs, change the tempo, layer different bitsof percussion over them, to make them more conductive for the dancefloor.' Frankies friend Larry Levan was a black teenager from Brooklyn like Frankie.In fact, it was Larry who first suggested opening The Warehouse in Chicago. However,things took a different turn, and in the end Larry Levan spun in New Yorks ParadiseGarage. Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles were indeed two very important figures in thedevelopment of House music and the modern dance scene. Perhaps there would have been nofame for the two without the producer, DJ and devoted lover of dance and music, DavidMancuso, and his dance parties for gays called Loft parties. 'The Loft' was ahouse party intended for a very black and a very gay crowd.Larry and Frankie attended the Loft parties regularly.
It was not only a place ofjoy but also a place where they became acquainted for the first time with the techniquesof House music. Mancuso taught them about creating a perfect House music: about sound,lighting, production, music and DJ techniques. By the mid 80s House had emerged in Chicago as a fully developedmusical genre through the efforts of Knuckles and those inspired by him like DJ Ron Hardyof Music Box fame. Ron Hardy was another DJ from the gay scene. The sounds they produceddiffered in that the basis of Knuckles sound was still disco, whereas Hardy was theDJ that chose the rawest and wildest rhythm tracks he could find.Besides Frankie Knuckles, Larry Levan, and Ron Hardy, there were other importantfigures in the development of House music such as Steve 'Silk' Hurley, DJPierre, Larry Heard, Adonis, Marshall Jefferson and Farley 'Jackmaster' Funk,who was a Chicago DJ and producer, as well as a creator of the first international Househit, 'Love Cant Turn Around'. DJ Pierre, on the other hand, contributed tothe development of Acid House. As a result, a track called 'Acid Trax' wasproduced. There have been various views of who is the inventor of House music. Forexample, Leonard Remix RRoy asserted that he had given birth to House in May 1981.
LRRoywas a remarkable and much respected DJ. He also claimed that he had invented the term'House music' in the spring of 1981.A person who regarded himself as a creator of House music in March of 1985 wasChip E.
Yet, there remains a third founder, for he produced 'Love Cant TurnAround', one of the biggest selling 'House' records. His name is Farley'Jackmaster' Funk. In fact, this big House 'cross-over' hit waswritten, produced and arranged by Jesse Saunders. Jesse, however, did not call himself thecreator of House music, but rather used the term 'originator', which did notmean that he had invented or created the genre of House music. By 'originator'he meant that he 'started and/or fused a sound with a lot of differentingredients'. Generally speaking, one can say, that there was not just one creator orinventor; on the contrary, House music evolved through the means of collaborative effortsof a few people like Frankie Knuckles, Vince Lawrence, Farley 'Jackmaster' Funk,as well as the promoters and labels that made easy the distribution of early House.The original disco-mixer Walter Gibbons, a white DJ, hada new and immediate impact on the development of Chicago House music.
His independent12' record called 'Set It Off' immediately became an underground clubanthem. The 'Set It Off' sound was primitive House, haunting, repetitive beatsideal for mixing and extending.House music was created in and by the African American community.Musically, House music evolved in Chicago and New York from African-American musicaltraditions like gospel, soul, jazz and funk as well as Latin salsa. Spiritually andaesthetically, it developed in the U.S. Out of the need of oppressed people, AfricanAmericans, gays and Latinos, to build a community through dance, and later in the UK, outof the need of young people dissatisfied with the meaningless materialism ofThatchers England, to build an alternative community of music and dance via AcidHouse. From a different point of view, House music in the U.S.
Was associated with blackpeople, with gay clubs, basically with things that white America would not evenacknowledge.House was just perceived as 'gay' music for blacks and thus scorned bywhites, although its aim was to unify people of all races, backgrounds and sexualorientations. According to Frankie Knuckles, many people could not and still cannot dealwith the fact that House music started in gay clubs. Thus, narrow-mindedness, racism, andeven corporate music politics played an important role in preventing House music fromflourishing in the U.S. In the eighties.House music had its origins in gospel, soul and funk rather than in commercialdisco music.
Furthermore, Chicago jazz, blues and soul had an immense influence on thecreation of House music. There were significant Midwestern musical influences that led tothe creation of the Chicago flavour of House music. No doubt, the Midwest had its owntradition of African American music. Thus, blues and jazz presented a part of the mix. Tosum up, the soul music produced in Chicago, Detroit and Memphis certainly had an impact onChicago house. In the early seventies the DJs tools began to improve as the marketfor dance music began to expand. Yet, the beginnings were hard, for there were only twotypes of records available, 45s and 33 1/3 LPs, which had 'A' sides and'B' sides, and different songs were recorded on both sides.
A record whichallowed more creativity, namely 12' dance mixes specifically intended for DJs, hadnot yet appeared on the market. DJs had to manage without basic equipment such as DJmixers or headphones. What is more, the turntables ran only at two speeds, 45 RPMs and 331/3 RPMs. It was impossible to vary the speed, so the turntable moved continuously. Inpractice, it could be described as follows: DJs started to play one record. Then they tookit off the turntable, prepared another record, put this one on and played it. In reality,'putting on and taking off' the record cannot be called mixing.
As expected, DJsneeded time to change the vinyl disc and thus dancers had to wait between the records.There was, however, one way that helped DJs overcome these technical problems.This method was called slip-cueing. The main part of the trick consisted in a duplicationof records.
In other words, the record collection needed to be copied. DJs had two goodturntables at their disposal.
They rigged the two tables with a switch into the amplifierso they could move from one to the other. Then they put the same recording on eachturntable, to try to extend the mix somehow. The least DJs could do was play the samerecord twice in pretty rapid succession, which was better than making the dancer waituntil they changed the record.
Instead of playing the record twice, there was yet anotherpossibility, namely to build the mix by isolating various instrumental, vocal and drumsegments and extend them by jumping from record to record.This technique was probably invented - or at least given currency - by DJ FrancisGrosso and widely used by radio station DJs. It required much practice with individualrecordings, great agility, and nerves of steel. Great turntablists of the seventies likeKool Herc and Grandmaster Flash developed such techniques into an art form. House music first came to England in the late eighties via the party island of Ibiza.In the summer of 1986 three House records appeared in the top ten: Farleys'Jackmaster' Funk 'Love Cant Turn Around', Razes'Jack The Groove', and Steve 'Silk' Hurleys 'Jack YourBody'. It is said that House music was popularised by the British who invented AcidHouse and then brought this modified version of House back to the United States.
AcidHouse was perceived differently and that was probably one of the reasons why it attractedthe attention of the mainstream. In this way, House music became acceptable dance musicalso for white folks.In reality, Acid House had already started in Chicago in 1985. DJ Pierreand some friends pushed a button on their Roland 303 and found that that Acid sound wasalready in it.
They produced a track called 'Acid Trax' which, they allege, wasstolen by Ron Hardy and delivered as 'Ron Hardys Acid Trax'.As Pierre once said, 'Phuture was me and two other guys, Spanky and HerbertJ. We had this Roland 303, which was a bassline machine, and we were trying to figure outhow to use it. When we switched it on, that acid sound was already in it and we liked thesound of it so we decided to add some drums and make a track with it. We gave it to RonHardy who started playing it straight away. In fact, the first time he played it, heplayed it four times in one night!
The first time people were like, what the fuck isit? but by the fourth they loved it. Then I started to hear that Ron was playingsome new thing they were calling Ron Hardys Acid Trax, and everybodythought it was something hed made himself. Eventually we found out that it was ourtrack so we called it Acid Trax. I think we may have made it as early as 1985,but Ron was playing it for a long time before it came out.' There have been various explanations for the term Acid. The mostpopular was that acid used to be put in the water at the Music Box. Pierre though,emphasises that Phuture was always anti-drugs, and cites a track about a cocainenightmare, 'Your only friend' that was on the same EP as 'Acid Trax'.'
Acid Trax' came out in 1986 but did not prove to be successful outside Chicago.The first Acid track to make it to vinyl was called 'Ive Lost Control'which was made by Adonis and Marshall Jefferson. Scratching in 1937? Believe it or not, sound mixing was not born in the1980s.
Take a look at the important dates and recordings that have defined musicmixing.