The Music Called House

The origins of what became known as House date back to DJ Frankie Knuckles' relocation from New York to Chicago in 1977 to take up residence at the nearly opened Warehouse. A new style of Dance music began to evolve out of efforts by Chicago DJs to magnify the beat in the club using synthesizers either on tape or live. For the first time in Dance music, radio played a significant role in the development of a new club genre. As the club-based music moved onto vinyl and release of records in 1984 House music began to dominate the Chicago club scene with the assistance of radio and influential club DJs. The international domination of Dance music culture by House began as Love Can't Turn Around by Farley 'Jackmaster' Funk was unleashed on the U.S. and the U.K. in the fall of 1986.

Chicago entrepreneur Robert Williams, himself a transplanted New Yorker, went looking for a DJ to help him enliven the Chicago club scene. He first approached Larry Levan who turned him down, but Levan suggested that Williams ask Levan's friend Frankie Knuckles. Frankie agreed to try out the job opportunity in Chicago and soon became the resident DJ at Chicago's Warehouse. Most Chicago audiences were unfamiliar with the cutting and mixing style of New York DJs. Frankie Knuckles quickly generated a strong following among Chicago club audiences. In 1982, after disagreements with management, Frankie Knuckles left the Warehouse for the newly opened Power Plant. The owners of the Warehouse re-styled the club as the Music Box and hired Ron Hardy, who had recently returned to Chicago from Los Angeles, to be resident DJ.

The competition between the Music Box and Power Plant was fierce. Both DJs pulled out all stops in their arsenals to engage audiences. Both Knuckles and Hardy elevated DJ manipulation of records to an art form, often using reel-to-reel tape to create their own remixed and recut versions of popular Dance hits. In local record stores such as Imports Etc. the term 'House' had been coined early on to identify the records played by Frankie Knuckles at the Warehouse and now was used to identify any of the hottest records in Chicago clubs. Both Knuckles and Hardy pushed their audiences by intensifying beats and alternating pushing volumes on the treble and the bass. Sometimes a crowd would be kept dancing by a simple repeated bass line, eager for what would come next.

From 1981 through 1986, radio station WBMX was also a major player in development of the sound of Chicago's Dance music. Five DJs including Kenny 'Jammin' Jason, Ralphi Rosario, Steve 'Silk' Hurley, Mickey 'Mixin' Oliver, and Farley 'Jackmaster' Funk became known as the Hot Mix 5. They would play mixes of the latest and hottest Dance music on the Chicago scene. At one point WBMX claimed audiences of over half a million for their mixes. These mixes were strongly influenced by European synth-based Dance music in the early 80's.

Farley 'Jackmaster' Funk, aside from being a Hot Mix radio DJ, was also a resident DJ in a club called the Playground. He began bringing a synthesized drum machine to play live along the bottom of Dance records. At the same time, Frankie Knuckles was mixing recorded drum machine tracks with other Dance records. This enhancement of powerful synth-drum would form the basis for recorded House. It did not take long for Chicago clubgoers to realize that they could create their own club music using relatively cheap synthesizers. In 1984 Jamie Principle recorded his own homemade track called Your Love that was suddenly in demand via cassette (the only medium he had available to record and distribute his song) across the city. Around the same time Jesse Saunders, a club DJ with connections to a local record label, recorded and released on vinyl a rhythm track titled On and On.

Within months the floodgates opened and Chicago clubs were filled with the sounds of homemade amateur rhythm tracks with or without vocals. Jesse Saunders, Chip E, and Larry Heard were just a few of the pioneers that became recording stars in the city of Chicago. Steve 'Silk' Hurley was also an early recording pioneer of House. He reworked Isaac Hayes' classic I Can't Turn Around as an instrumental track. The track made its way to Farley 'Jackmaster' Funk who added vocals by Darryl Pandy and renamed it Love Can't Turn Around. In the summer and fall of 1986 Love Can't Turn Around became the first House track to hit the Pop top ten in the U.K. and reach the top twenty of the American Dance charts. House as an international force had arrived.