‘’ would take on a whole new lease of life when a spin-off mash-up that married the track with a Candi Staton acappella called ‘’ went huge in the underground clubs, and, via an official 1991 release by The Source & Candi Staton, would climb all the way into the UK top 5.
Having championed the original demo, Knuckles took the artist credit when issued on seminal Chicago label Trax, by way of Frankie Knuckles Presents - Principle’s name not appearing at all. The track he’s best remembered for wasn’t one of his own, but Jamie Principle’s ‘’. Famously describing house as ‘disco’s revenge’ in 1990, he belatedly hit back at those who had declared disco ‘dead’ in 1979, following on from Chicago’s infamous Comiskey Park baseball stadium record burning frenzy whipped up by shock jock Steve Dahl under the banner of ‘Disco Demolition Night’.Īlso known for his recordings, production and remixes, his most successful was ‘’ (1991), a top 20 UK hit. Whilst house remained largely marginalised in the US, it exploded into mainstream consciousness in the UK, Europe and other parts of the world, where Knuckles’ DJ appearances were in great demand.
Record store, racked under the shortened heading ‘house’, unwittingly planting the seeds for the birth of a dance music movement that continues to fill floors worldwide – the irony being that house music was never played at The Warehouse (Knuckles moved to The Power Plant in 1982, whilst The Warehouse, renamed The Music Box, hired DJ Ron Hardy, setting in motion a whole new phase for Chicago, which would serve to ensure Knuckles’ legend). By the early ’80s the music Knuckles played at had gained its own category in Chicago’s Imports Etc. Having started out playing soul, funk and disco in the mid-’70s filling in for Larry Levan, his childhood friend, at New York’s gay bathhouse/nightspot, the, in 1977 he moved to Chicago to take up residency at The Warehouse – a position initially offered to Levan, who declined, instead embarking on his own journey to DJ eminence as the guiding force behind NYC’s game-changing Paradise Garage. Bronx-born (Francis Nicholls) was an honorary Chicagoan bestowed with the title ‘Godfather Of House’. We've drafted in Greg Wilson, the former electro-funk pioneer, nowadays a leading figure in the global disco/re-edits movement and respected commentator on dance music and popular culture, to bring us four random nuggets of history highlighting a classic DJ, label, venue and record each month.
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