Chicago house refers to house music produced during the mid to late 1980s within Chicago. The term is generally used to refer to the original house music DJs and producers from the area, such as Ron Hardy and Phuture.
Lawrence Philpot, known as Larry Levan, was an American DJ best known for his decade-long residency at the New York City night club Paradise Garage, which has been described as the prototype of the modern dance club. He developed a cult following who referred to his sets as "Saturday Mass". Influential post-disco DJ François Kevorkian credits Levan with introducing the dub aesthetic into dance music. Along with Kevorkian, Levan experimented with drum machines and synthesizers in his productions and live sets, ushering in an electronic, post-disco sound that presaged the ascendence of house music. He DJ'd at Club Zanzibar in the 1980s as well, home to the Jersey Sound brand of deep house or garage house.
Ron Hardy was an American, Chicago, Illinois-based DJ and record producer of early house music. He is well known for playing records at the Muzic Box, a Chicago house music club. Decades after his death, he is recognized for his innovative edits and mixes of disco, soul music, funk and early house music.
Paradise Garage, also known as "the Garage" or the "Gay-rage", was a New York City discotheque notable in the history of dance and pop music, as well as LGBT and nightclub cultures. The 10,000 square feet (930 m2) club was founded by sole proprietor Michael Brody, and occupied a building formerly located at 84 King Street in the SoHo neighborhood. It operated from 1977 to 1987 and featured resident DJ Larry Levan.
Francis Warren Nicholls Jr., known professionally as Frankie Knuckles, was an American DJ, record producer, and remixer. He played an important role in developing and popularizing house music, a genre of music that began in Chicago during the early 1980s and subsequently spread worldwide. In 1997, Knuckles won the Grammy Award for Remixer of the Year, Non-Classical. Due to his importance in the development of the genre, Knuckles was often called "The Godfather of House Music".
Northern soul is a music and dance movement that emerged in Northern England and the Midlands in the early 1970s. It developed from the British mod scene, based on a particular style of Black American soul music with a heavy beat and fast tempo.
In popular music, a break is an instrumental or percussion section during a song derived from or related to stop-time – being a "break" from the main parts of the song or piece. A break is usually interpolated between sections of a song, to provide a sense of anticipation, signal the start of a new section, or create variety in the arrangement.
Francis Grasso was an American disco music disc jockey from New York City, best known for being one of the first people to beatmatch.
Diva house or handbag house is an anthemic subgenre of house music that became most popular in gay clubs during the second half of the 1990s. The Encyclopedia of Contemporary British Culture defines handbag house as having "prominent female vocals, breakdowns, and a proliferation of piano 'stabs'." Modern diva house compositions use synth stabs and four on the floor rhythms.
The Loft was the location for the first underground dance party organized by David Mancuso, on February 14, 1970, in New York City. Since then, the term "The Loft" has come to represent Mancuso's own version of a non-commercial party where no alcohol, food, nor beverages are sold. Mancuso's vision of a private party is similar to, and inspired by, the rent party and house party. Unlike conventional nightclubs or discotheques, attendance is by invitation only. In the late 1970s, Mancuso abandoned the generally accepted and expected practice of beatmatching, preferring to play songs in their entirety on his renowned audiophile-quality sound system. The Village Voice wrote that Mancuso's sound system was the best in New York and even described him as "more of a party engineer than a DJ." Mancuso required that the music played had to be soulful, rhythmic, and impart words of hope, redemption, or pride.
"Acid Tracks" is a 1987 acid house song by Phuture produced by Marshall Jefferson and released by Trax Records. Phuture consisted of Nathan Pierre Jones, better known as DJ Pierre, Earl Smith Jr, and Herbert Jackson. Jones had been interested in developing dance music and became superficially interested in house music after Spanky had taken him to see DJ Ron Hardy perform in Chicago. The trio began developing tracks without finding anything that they felt was satisfying; Jones had heard a track made on the unpopular Roland TB-303 bass machine, which led the group to purchase one.
Last Night a DJ Saved My Life may refer to:
The Warehouse is a historic building located in Chicago, Illinois in the United States, best known for the same-named nightclub catering to the gay and alternative communities that was established in 1977 under the direction of Robert "Robbie" Williams. It was Robbie Williams who on promotional posters would describe events at the Warehouse as 'house' parties or 'house' music. As such, the Warehouse is best known as the namesake for, and one of the origins of, house music. The Warehouse is specifically associated with Chicago house, and was the genre's birthplace under its first musical director, DJ Frankie Knuckles.
Robbie Leslie was one of a small group of popular and influential disc jockeys working in the New York area, Florida, and The Coast in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Beginning his career at Fire Island's disco The Sandpiper, he moved to New York City in 1979. The list of clubs at which he regularly performed includes many well-known nightspots: Studio 54, Palladium, Underground, The Red Parrot, The Saint, and 12 West.
The Gallery was a disco in SoHo, Manhattan which was opened in February 1972 by disc jockey Nicky Siano and his older brother Joe Siano. The first location of The Gallery, located on 132 West 22nd Street, closed in July 1974. It reopened in November 1974 at 172 Mercer and Houston Streets and closed in October 1977. Famed DJs Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles both worked at the club, but not at the DJ booth. Grace Jones and Loleatta Holloway both made their debut performances at The Gallery.
Richie Kaczor was an early DJ during disco's infancy in the 1970s.
In music, the terms Afro/cosmic disco, the cosmic sound, free-style sound, and combinations thereof are used somewhat interchangeably to describe various forms of synthesizer-heavy and/or African-influenced dance music and methods of DJing that were originally developed and promoted by a small number of DJs in certain discothèques of Northern Italy from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s. The terms slow-motion disco and Elettronica Meccanica are also associated with the genre.
DJhistory.com is a website dedicated to the history of dance music and DJing, and also an online record label and book publishing company. It aims to encourage interest in obscure, overlooked and collectable dance music, by creating an archive of reference material on the subject and by licensing and reissuing rare and exceptional music for download.
Bill Brewster is a British writer and disc jockey. Brewster co-wrote the book Last Night a DJ Saved My Life with Frank Broughton. The duo also launched and run Djhistory.com. In 2002, his mix album, Praxis, was released on Hooj Choons.
Colin Curtis is a British DJ whose career spans several decades and musical developments.
