Greg Bowes: Music
He’s widely regarded as the father of house music, the four-to-the-floor style that currently eclipses all others on the world’s dancefloors. He’s remixed or worked with some of pop music’s biggest guns. His deejaying skills are legendary. He is Frankie Knuckles, and he’s on his way to South Africa next month to drop devastating discotheque dynamite at two lavish parties.
Born in New York’s Bronx more than four decades ago, Frankie Knuckles has done his time – and done it in some of clubland’s most mythical spaces, including New York’s Roxy and Sound Factory. He first took to the turntables in the late Seventies, mixing up disco and funky soul at gay venues like Better Days and the Continental Baths, before moving to Chicago in the late Seventies for a residency at the Warehouse, where modern dance music reached a crucial turning point.
The rumour that the term “house” music is derived from the name of this venue is probably not far from the truth, for it’s almost certain that this is where – under throbbing strobes and among sweaty bare- chested men and the faintest whiff of amyl- nitrate – the trend found its feet.
Many of Frankie’s set-stealing anthems in the early Eighties were cut at home, where he was re-editing classic Philadelphia soul cuts – giving them harder, more regular bass beats with a drum machine, or isolating an exciting chorus or lick into a more repetetive, hypnotic framework. The buzz this created on the dancefloor soon rubbed off on other deejays and producers, and as they had those tracks pressed the gospel of house music spread.
Knuckles produced his first records with Jamie Principle in 1988, and has subsequently worked with material from a host of musicians, including Michael and Janet Jackson, ABC, Chaka Khan, En Vogue, Diana Ross and Inner City, to name just a few. His collaborations with the golden tonsils of Robert Owens are underground club classics, and his work with Adeva on their Welcome To The Real World album introduced him momentarily to a modicum of mainstream success. He was recently honoured with an Outstanding Achievement in Dance Music award at Muzik magazine’s annual Saints and Sinners Awards.
But although he’s among the pioneers of black dance music it’s unlikely he’ll see too many black faces at his two scheduled gigs. The first happens in Johannesburg on Friday September 12 and is promoted by rave organisers-extraordinaire, Mother Productions, in association with 5FM. At least the venue – the spectacularly-domed Blue Room and South Station – will help make up for the monochrome crowd.
The second bash occurs the following evening in Cape Town, where he’ll be spinning at the after party for the Storm Supermodel fashion show, which is rumoured to feature supermodels Kate Moss and Veronica Webb.
But chances are there’ll be few out-of-hand party animals and sleazy riff raff to add some colour to that jol either – tickets for the event cost anywhere up to R250.