Frankie Knuckles - R.I.P.

[lyndon]

Just seen Judge Jules on ITV News talking about him. Astonishing what he helped start off, they'll still be playing his tunes when Guetta is long gone.

http://www.itv.com/news/2014-04-01/godfather-of-house-music-frankie-knuckles-dies-aged-59/

[Chewbs]

Good post. Respect.

[Neuro]

No exaggeration from Jules in that interview above; House music and therefore all electronic music owes a lot to the great man.

Turn it up and dance

Sept 18, 2013 - The Boiler Room, London:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EanuiNxcVHk

Tracklisting:

1) Ariana Grande - Baby I (Director's Cut Vocal Edit)
2) Spencer Parker & Dan Beaumont - The Look (Director's Cut Signature Mix)
3) D Bow - Get Involved Feat. Sonny Fodera (Director's Cut Mix)
4) Lou Rawls - You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine (Director's Cut Mix)
5) Erick Morillo, Harry Romero & Jose Nunez feat. Shawnee Taylor - My Melody (Morillo & Romero Dirty Mix)
6) Donna Summer - Hot stuff (Director's Cut Signature vocalmix)
7) LIL' LOUIS - Fable (Frankie Knuckles Director's Cut Classic Club Mix)
8) Frankie Knuckles & Director's Cut & Inaya Day - Lets stay home
9) Marko Militano feat Darren Barret - Good People (Director's Cut exclusive remix, unreleased)
10) Soulful Session Feat. Lynn Lockamy - Hostile Takeover (Frankie Knuckles & Eric Kuppers' Director's Cut Mix)
11) Ashford & Simpson - Bourgie Bourgie (A Director's Cut Exclusive, Unreleased) 

The Continental was where Bette Middler and her pianist Barry Manilow got their first breaks. Knuckles, born Francis Nicholls, was a teenage fashion student who would occasionally stand in for his friend, resident DJ Larry Levan (who would later rule the city’s legendary Paradise Garage nightclub). Knuckles couldn’t initially mix one record into another but he liked the vibe and he stuck with it.

By the time he helmed his own night at the Warehouse in Chicago, he could DJ all right – but Saturday Night Fever had helped turn disco into a cheesy fad. Knuckles took action. He manipulated magnetic tape, extending instrumental passages on songs. He added a cheap “rhythm box” – eventually a drum machine – to his live mixing. In doing so he defined a style; disco-soul to a taut minimal dynamic. Abbreviated from his club night, this became “house”.

America has a history of giving European pop culture raw material. A deprived black southern American underclass created the blues but it took the Rolling Stones to wake the country up to Muddy Waters et al. A decade later US cities nurtured originals such as the Stooges and the Ramones, but it took the Sex Pistols and London’s media to blow punk rock sky high. Thus it was again with house music.

Many club styles have appeared since, but house is year zero. Once Europe got hold of it, a true socio-musical explosion occurred, rave culture was born, followed by tabloid hysteria and a sonic juggernaut that’s been mutating pop for 25 years.

Knuckles’s innovations were central to that. He went on to produce major releases but it was his broader contribution that caused Barack Obama in, as Senator for Illinois, to rename the street where the Warehouse stood Frankie Knuckles Way.

It is right, then, that on his relatively early death at 59, Knuckles is being saluted. When his career started, the concept of a superstar DJ or of electronic dance music conquering America would have been unthinkable. He has long been a cornerstone in such developments.

Knuckles may be gone but the ethos he set in motion, the release of wild energy all night long to a soundtrack of thumping electronic futurism, is as invigorating as ever.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopmusic/10741370/Frankie-Knuckles-why-DJs-deserve-to-be-saluted.html

BBC Six - Dave Pearce interviews Frankie Knuckles - 2 hour interview with music selection: