House is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by a repetitive four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120 to 130 beats per minute. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground club culture in the 1980s, as DJs from the subculture began altering disco songs to give them a more mechanical beat and deeper basslines.
Chess Records was an American record company established in 1950 in Chicago, specializing in blues and rhythm and blues. It was the successor to Aristocrat Records, founded in 1947. It expanded into soul music, gospel music, early rock and roll, and jazz and comedy recordings, released on the Chess and its subsidiary labels Checker and Argo/Cadet. The Chess catalogue is currently owned by Universal Music Group and managed by Geffen Records.
Chicago house refers to house music produced during the mid to late 1980s within Chicago. The term is generally used to refer to the first ever house music productions, which were by Chicago-based artists in the 1980s.
Illinois, including Chicago, has a wide musical heritage. Chicago is most famously associated with the development of electric blues music. Chicago was also a center of development for early jazz and later for house music, and includes a vibrant hip hop scene and R&B. Chicago also has a thriving rock scene that spans the breadth of the rock genre, from huge stadium-filling arena-rock bands to small local indie bands. Chicago has had a significant historical impact on the development of many rock subgenres including power pop, punk rock, indie rock, emo rock, pop punk, and alternative rock.
Francis Warren Nicholls, Jr., better known as Frankie Knuckles, was an American DJ, record producer and remixer. He played an important role in developing and popularizing house music in Chicago during the 1980s, when the genre was in its infancy. 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".
Thrill Jockey is an American independent record label established in 1992 in New York City by former Atlantic Records A&R representative Bettina Richards and currently based in Chicago.
Trax Records is a record label based in Chicago. It played a major part in the development of house music.
Nathaniel Pierre Jones, better known by his stage name DJ Pierre, is an American DJ and performer of house music based in Chicago. He helped to develop the house music subgenre of acid house, as member of Phuture, whose 1987 EP Acid Tracks, is considered the first acid-house recording. Allmusic.com calls Jones a crucial DJ and the production wizard partly responsible for the development of Chicago acid-house. Jones' first single, "Generate Power," became standard fare for scores of producers during the next few years. Philippe Renaud, a journalist for La Presse in Montreal, states that the term acid house was coined in Chicago in 1987 to describe the sound of the Roland 303 bass machine, which made its first significant recording appearance on Phuture's Acid Trax in that year.
DJ Sneak is a Puerto Rican-born American DJ and record producer raised in Chicago, Illinois, United States. He is noted as being one of the second wave of Chicago house producers, as well as a member of the vanguard of late-1990s United States house producers.
Jesse Saunders is an American DJ, record producer, film producer and entrepreneur. He is one of the pioneers of house music, often cited as "the originator of house music" by critics and historians. His 1984 single, "On & On", co-written with Vince Lawrence, was the first record with a house DJ as the artist that was pressed and sold to the public. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley declared July 17, 1997, as Jesse Saunders and the Pioneers of House Music Day in Chicago. Since his emergence as a DJ almost three decades ago, Saunders has run several of his own independent labels, and worked extensively in music and film production, as well as artist promotion and management. In recent years, through house music reunions, a pending book release and a live 'disc-jocumentary' – where, while DJing, he visually takes the audience through the history of house and electro – Saunders has worked towards erasing the misconceptions associated with the genre's origins. He is also a long-time member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Radio Recorders, Inc. located at 7000 Santa Monica Boulevard, was a recording studio based in Los Angeles, California.
Chicago, Illinois is a major center for music in the midwestern United States where distinctive forms of blues, and house music, a genre of electronic dance music, were developed.
Armando Gallop, who released material under his first name only, was an American house-music producer and DJ who was an early contributor to the development of acid house.
Ronald "Ron" Trent is an American house music DJ and record producer.
PIAS is a London-headquartered international recording, licensing, distribution, sales and marketing company for independent music.
John DiFronzo, nicknamed "No Nose", was an American mobster and the reputed former boss of the Chicago Outfit.
The A. D. German Warehouse is a Frank Lloyd Wright designed Mayan Revival warehouse that was constructed in Richland Center, Wisconsin in 1921. Wright was born in Richland Center in 1867. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
DFTBA Records is an e-commerce merchandise company that was co-founded by Hank Green and Alan Lastufka in 2008. Originally a record label, the company now focuses on selling merchandise for prominent YouTube stars, such as Green himself, his brother the novelist John Green, Charlie McDonnell, CGP Grey, and Charles Trippy, among several others. DFTBA is an initialism for "don't forget to be awesome", a catchphrase of the Green brothers and used as a closing tagline on their Crash Course educational video series, among others, such as their podcast, Dear Hank and John.
Dusty Groove is a Chicago-based online record store specializing in new and vintage jazz, funk, soul, hip-hop, world, rare, collectible, and obscure vinyl records and CDs.
Work That Mutha Fucker is the debut EP by American house producer Steve Poindexter, released in 1989.
