What a sad loss. This man started it all, this whole culture we're so involved in. I wrote this piece about him for
Generation Bass, quoting extensively from Tim Lawrence's Love Saves The Day to explain to younger readers just why Knuckles was so important. Rest in Peace, I hope he's going one on one off with Larry Levan and Tee Scott in Heaven right now!
Dance music moves pretty fast, and unlike genres like rock or jazz,
can lack a solid connection to its past someitmes. I guess that’s to be
expected from a genre that’s all about living in the now, pushing things
forward, the shock of the new, etc. All these things are great, don’t
get me wrong, but sometimes it would benefit us to stop and appreciate
where we have come from as we move relentlessly forward.
Frankie Knuckles passed away on Tuesday, a sad day for house music,
and indeed, electronic dance music in general. Knuckles was known as
“the Godfather of House”, and for good reason. There is perhaps no other
figure who has had as much influence on the electronic music we dance
to, and how and where we dance to it. There have been a couple of “who?”
style comments about Knuckles since his passing, so Generation Bass
asked me to put together a little something about the Godfather of House
for the GB site. It’s gonna be hard to sum up in words how important
Frankie Knuckles is to this culture, but I’m going to give it a shot.
OK, let’s start with the basics. Have you ever wondered why “house
music” is called “house” music? Yes, the word sounds cool, but where
does the term comes from? It comes from Knuckles, and his time as
resident DJ at Chicago’s Warehouse club in the late 70s/early 80s.
“Warehouse” was shortened to “house”, and the term was used to refer to
the music Knuckles played at the club.
All good, but what about house music? It’s one thing to give a genre a
name, but what about its trademark sounds? Again, you can thank
Knuckles. He established the early Chicago house aesthetic not just with
his unique dj mixes of electronic disco and synth-pop/new wave, but his
early experiments cutting up well known tracks over a 909 drum machine
beat (live, right there in the club) set the template for Chicago house
and a technique still being used by producers to this day. And that’s
not even mention his real production work and remixing, most notably his
work with the vocalist Jamie Principle.
Your Love,
Baby Wants To Ride,
Bad Boy
– this records might be nearly 30 years old, but they set the benchmark
for raw, sensual, funky house music and still sound immaculate and
dance floor destroying to this day. These were also some of the first
ever crossover house “hits”, taking the sound from the Chicago
underground out into the big, wide world.
OK, so, we all know house music is not just a sound or a word, it’s a
full-on culture, a way of life. But where did this way of life come
from? Look, I’m gonna pull out the big guns here. The following is made
up of two transcript from the book
Love Saves The Day by Tim Lawrence, a book about the roots and birth of dance culture that I highly encourage anyone interested in music to read:
Over in Chicago, meanwhile, Frankie Knuckles was looking for some
change to come from without. “By the middle of 1978 I was thinking
“We’ve got to get some more people around here.” says the DJ. “I was
born and raised in New York City and was used to a much more diverse
mixture on the dance floor, so I started hanging out at some other clubs
and a few people began to trickle down.” Around the same time the
predominantly white gay Carol’s Speakeasy offered the Manhattan DJ a
weekly spot, and before long he was playing four nights a week,
including Saturdays. “I was thinking if this takes off, I can get these
people to follow me down to the Warehouse, too. Eventually they did.” In
an unlikely twist, college fraternity boys also began to flock to hear
Knuckles. “We rented out the space on Friday nights, and college
fraternities were always having parties there. Some of the guys started
to come by on Saturday nights and check thugs out. Initially they were
appalled but they always came back.”
The straight college contingent was re-enforced when Jesse
Saunders and Farley “Jackmaster” Funk. two DJs from a mass-advertised
party called The Playground, started to take their student crowd to the
Warehouse after their own gatherings wound up for the night at 1:30am,
and it continued to grow when the punk oriented clique Medusa’s and the
new wavers form the Space Place started to dance at the South Jefferson
venue in 1980. “I had a 45″ out called “Bad Influence” and someone told
me that Frankie Knuckles had done a mix of it,” says Screamin’ Rachel,
one of the organisers of the Space Place, which was situated two blocks
away from the Warehouse. “I went to find out what was going on, and it
opened a whole new door for me. It was a cathartic, wild, tribal
experience. People were stripping off their clothes and jacking their
bodies. It was like being in bed standing up.”
Robert Williams was relaxed about the shift in demographics. “At
some opine in the beginning the Warehouse was a black, gay party, but by
the late 70s it had become really mixed. People were travelling from
all over the Midwest, and I didn’t mind who was coming as long as they
were having a good time.” The mogul’s decision to convert the previously
disused basement into a lounge and refreshment area significantly
expanded the club’s capacity, which now ran across three floors. “We
were getting fifteen hundred into the club at any one point, although
two to three thousand might pass through the door on any one night.” The
parties nevertheless managed to retain a level of intimacy that,
according to Williams, was second only to the Loft. “Everyone knew
everyone at the Warehouse, which wasn’t the case at the Paradise Garage.
I started to go to the Garage during this period, and I thought it was
kind of commercial. You would be in there and you might only know ten
people, whereas at the Warehouse it was much more family-orientated.
Anyone who was not a regular was nicknamed a visitor or a tourist.”
Having given himself five years to get the Warehouse off the
ground, Knuckles was able to congratulate himself on completing the job
in two. “Everybody was saying “Are you going to the house” – the
Warehouse – “on the weekend?” says Knuckles. “The Warehouse became the
thing to do for all these high school kids.” Their integration was
relatively smooth. “It was a little difficult seeing men dance together,
but then again, there were all sorts,” says Andre Halmon, who first
went to the club in 1979. “It was dark in the club and you could lose
your sense of time. You could never tell if it was gay or straight. It
was very hard to say who was who.” The music programmed the dancers to
transcend conventional experiences of sexuality. “I was swept away by
the music. I already knew people in the industry so I was familiar with
some things. But it was also really underground. The music made everyone
bisexual.” Club kid Byron Stingley agrees. “I always thought it would
be strictly gay, but in reality it became a place to break down
homophobic barriers. No one really cared about sexuality. everyone was
just into having a good time.”
Knuckles watched Steve Dahl’s Disco Demolition rally from the
comfort of his own front room. “I watched it on television, and I
remember it being pretty intense. He just blew up these records, and
then they said “That’s the end of disco!” People were telling me “I
guess you’re going to be out of work now!” and I said “No-ooo!” It
didn’t affect the Warehouse because the Warehouse was not a mainstream
discotheque. It was an underground club.” Williams was equally
unflustered. “You couldn’t call the music Frankie played “disco” ” he
says “If you went to the Warehouse and then to a bar it would be a
completely different experience. We were dealing with grassroots music
and grassroots people. The Warehouse was completely void of the disco
stigma and because of this we bypassed the disco era. As a matter of
fact we thought Steve Dahl was hilarious.” The American judiciary,
media, radio and suburbs might have conspired to write disco’s death
notice, but the mixed urban crowd kept on dancing, and, in a strange
twist of history, the Warehouse took off at the very moment disco was
supposed to have died. “It all kicked in around 1980,” says Knuckles.
“Enough new people had discovered it and were turning new people onto
it. The Warehouse became the next big thing.”
Knuckles began to work some old connections in order to supply
his dance floor with fresh sounds – and stay one step ahead of his
Chicago rivals. “I used to fly back to New York every two or three
months. I would do my record shopping on Thursday and Friday then hang
out at the Garage on Saturday.” The visits provided him with advanced
access to the hottest new vinyl. “There might have been eight killer
records that were buzzing on the underground. I managed to get my hands
on all that stuff cos everybody would be at the Garage. They were
bringing acetates and promos to Larry and they would give them to me as
well.” Assuming the role of the good godfather, Knuckles also started to
re-edit existing material on a reel-to-reel in order to feed his kids.
“I taught myself how to edit. I would rerecord, reedit and extend
existing records. I would take the break section and make a new intro
with it. I would re-structure the song in the middle, change the break
around a little bit, and up the tempo via the pitch control.” Knuckles
was driven by a general fall in the output of dance music – especially
by the major labels. “It was the only alternative I had. There wasn’t
enough stuff coming out to keep the dance floor interested and for the
most part what did come out was downtempo. The crowd was still coming to
the Warehouse, but I had to give them something to latch onto.”
Halmon latched on right away. “It was only when I tried to buy
the records Frankie was playing I released I had heard an edit,” he
says. Frankie would mix, but editing became his signature. He was really
into reconstructing records. He would cut out the boring parts. It was
all reel-to-reel. I remember he did one that started off with the
opening bars of Shannon Redd’s “Beat The Street”. It really got the
crowd going.” The response of the dancers was accentuated by the paucity
of club life in the city. “There were so many venues to choose from in
New York,” add Halmon, “but in Chicago we weren’t getting anything, so
there was a real sense of urgency.” Williams, who had once wondered if
Chicagoans would be too conservative to adopt Knuckles, was taken aback.
“It was a new thing to them and they just went wild. Frankie and I were
like “Hmmmm can you believe this?” Sometimes he would accidentally take
the arms off the record that was playing, and they would go mad because
they thought it was a sound effect. We would laugh.” Knuckles made the
most of the situation. “There was double the energy at the Warehouse. In
New York everybody was pretty much educated about the music and the
sound. They would give you an air of “well, we know!” whereas in Chicago
everybody’s approach was “it’s new, it’s great, it’s fun, let’s make
the most of it!” New York had the better sound systems, but the energy
and the crowd were definitely better outside of New York City, and this
was what was going on at the Warehouse. It was the newest thing.”
… the DJ’s huge influence on the Chicago scene was unofficially
recognised when his musical selections were given the unique label –
house (short for Warehouse) music. Knuckles traces the designation to
the turn of the decade. “I was going with a friend of mine to his house
on the south side of Chicago, and we left the expressway at the 95th
Street exit” he says ” We came to this stoplight, and there was a bar on
the corner with a sign in the window saying “We play house music” so I
asked “What’s that?” My friend said, “All the stuff that you play at the
Warehouse!” I said “Reeeeally?” he said “Everybody goes to the
Warehouse on the weekends, and these kids are saying that they play the
same music as you.” I was like “OK.” This was in 1980, 1981.”
But it wasn’t just Chicago in the 80s that Knuckles helped influence.
He was right there at the birth of disco culture in New York in the
70s, too. Best friends with Paradise Garage’s legendary Larry Levan,
Knuckles got his break after learning from legendary first generation
DJs like Nicky Siano and Tee Scott:
“Larry [Levan] and I would blow up the balloons, set up the food
bar, prepare the punch, and give out acid, but we also spent a lot of
time hanging out in the booth, watching Nicky [Siano]‘s every move,”
says Frankie Knuckles. “He pretty much taught us what he was doing.”
Biding his time, Levan eventually persuaded Knuckles to hang with
him at the [Continental Baths]. “He was always trying to get me to go
down, and I refused to go,” says Knuckles. “I finally decided to go for
the Fourth of July weekend and ended up staying for what I thought was
three or four days.” With no natural light, the bathhouse had played
tricks with time. “It was only when I went outside I realised I’d been
there for two weeks.” During this and subsequent stays the duo made
quite an impression. “Larry was hanging out on a regular basis as a
customer, and then Frankie started to come along too,” says La Torre. “I
remember them sharing a room and sleeping there. In fact they
practically lived in the Baths, to be honest. I don’t know if they
didn’t have a place to live or what, but they would come for days on
end.”
The aspiring DJs created a good impression. “They were very nice
and very friendly, and I had gotten to like them because they had spent
so much time at the Baths as customers,” adds La Torre. “I just thought
they were people who loved to party, and I liked the way in which they
were into music.” Eventually the defacto dance floor manager gave Levan
and Knuckles a chance to play. “The Baths was open twenty-four hours a
day, and it was usually quiet in the afternoon. The people who stayed
there overnight usually checked out int he morning, and the people who
were going to come in the evening usually didn’t arrive till four or
five, so there was a period in the day when there was hardly anyone
around, and that was when I let Frankie and Larry practice on the
soundsystem.”
“I felt kind of used by Larry [Levan],” [Nicky Siano] says. I’d
introduced him to my record company contacts, and when he got the job at
the Continental Baths he went behind my back and used my name in order
to put together a collection. He never came to me for help. I would have
helped him, but he obviously had other ideas. Franki never did that.
Frnakie was the exact opposite in that respect.”
Knuckles got his break djing behind the turntables thanks to
Levan. “IT was just Larry at the beginning, but sometimes he would play
part of the night and then he would give Frnakie a chance,” says La
Torre. “He would would ask us if it was ok to Frankie play and we would
say ‘Yes’. Larry had proved himself, and it made us feel more
comfortable about letting Frnakie have a go.” Knuckles was subsequently
offered a start of the week slot at Better Days. I kind of knew Frankie
through various channels, but we became friends during this club boom,
and Frankie was trying to play at the Continental Baths,” Tee Scott told
Daniel Wang. “So one night I saw him sitting there with his head in his
hands, and I said “I’m overworked with seven nights a week over at
Better Days, so why don’t you have two of my nights there?” Knuckles
told Scott that he wouldn’t – couldn’t – play, but he was persuading
nobody. “Tee told me “Look you’re in this booth with Nicky every week,
what do you mean you can’t do it?” He let me use his records, and I
gradually built up a clientele of about four or five hundred. The run
was short-lived. “Six months into the job I was told they were shutting
the night down because they weren’t making any money. I thought it was
doing well, but that’s what I was told.”
Luckily for Knuckles, Levan handed him his start of the week
nights. “I played Mondays and Tuesdays” says Knuckles. “Larry played
Wednesday through to Sunday.” The slow afternoon, however, remained the
most important slot of all. “For the most part nobody was paying any
attention to the dance floor, so we would just turn off the main system
and use the monitors in the booth. We’d be in there smoking a joint,
just playing records, feeding off each other.” Influences began to
materialise. “Larry’s style was more David [Mancuso] and I was more
Nicky [Siano]. I was into the mix, just like Nicky, whereas Larry went
for the atmosphere and the feeling, which was more like David. Larry’s
main focus was creating moods.”
Having learned their trade form the Italian-American pioneers of
the early seventies, African American DJs were beginning to make an
impact. “We were like a brethren back then,” says Knuckles ” There
weren’t that many black DJs playing in New York City, let alone black
gay ones, and you could pretty well count us on one hand. There was me,
Larry, Tee Scott and David Todd. I guess we were like the second
generation. We were the next wave.”
There you have it. You don’t have to take my word for it, it is
literally in the history books. What Frankie Knuckles achieved in his
life, and the influence he had on others, was immense. Your favourite
genre? Wouldn’t be the same without Knuckles. Your favourite DJ?
Wouldn’t be the same without Knuckles. Your favourite club? Ditto. Dance
music culture in general? Ditto.
The next time you dance to a song you could categorise as “house”, or
even the next time you dance to an electronic beat, give a little
thanks to Frankie Knuckles. The next time you go to your favourite
nightclub or discotheque to hear those beats, the next time you turn and
raise your hand to the DJ, the next time you sing your heart out on the
dance floor or share sweaty hugs with your friends, old and new, give a
little thanks to Frankie. The next time you think “clubbing is so good”
or “clubbing is my life”, give a little thanks to Knuckles. He drew up
the blueprints, he laid the foundations, and he built up this world we
know and love so much. May he rest in peace!
