Knuckles, Frankie 1955–

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Frankie Knuckles 1955–

Disc jockey, music producer

DJ Frankie Knuckles is credited with creating the soulful, energetic style of dance music known as house. The Godfather of House, as he is known, blended traditional soul music with percussive, danceable beats for club goers in Chicago in the late 1970s. By the 1980s and early 1990s, house music was an international phenomenon in dance clubs around the world, and on the international dance-music charts. Knuckles was internationally renown both as a live DJ and for his recordings, including Beyond the Mix, Welcome to the Real World, and Motivation.

Frankie Knuckles (his birth name) was born in the South Bronx borough of New York City on January 18, 1955. The first music he was exposed to as a child came from him sister’s jazz record collection, as well as Philadelphia soul and Detroit’s Motown sound that was popular during the era. Of the music coming out of Detroit and Philadelphia during his youth, Knuckles told Surrey, Australia’s Daily Telegraph: “It not only had the rhythm, it had the harmonies and the melodies and then you had great voices delivering really great songs, songs that said something or songs that didn’t say anything other than just making you feel good.” He was naturally creative and artistic early on; he was interested in and studied commercial art and costume design before he started spinning records as a teen in 1971.

Found Groove at Warehouse

Knuckles’ first DJing job came from Tee Scott, whom he credits as both a legend and a major influence on his own style. In 1972 Knuckles and childhood friend Larry Levan worked together at the New York City club The Gallery. When Levan left to work at Continental Baths in 1973, Knuckles followed to work as an alternate DJ to Levan. “[Continental Baths] had everything: a bathhouse, theater, and cabaret,” Knuckles told Billboard in 1991. “When I worked there, the cabaret was featuring such unknown artists as Bette Midler and Barry Manilow. It was my job to supply the music for people to dance to before and after the shows.” Levan left Continental Baths in 1974 to open his own club, called SoHo Place, while Knuckles remained at Continental Baths until the club closed in 1976. Knuckles was reunited with Levan when Levan hired him as SoHo Place’s head DJ.

Levan was in the process of opening another club, the

At a Glance…

Born on January 18, 1955, in South Bronx, NY.

Career: Professional DJ, music producer, 1971-; The Gallery, New York, DJ, 1972-73; Continental Baths, New York, DJ, 1973-76; SoHo Place, New York, DJ, 1976-77; The Warehouse, Chicago, DJ, 1977-82; Power Plant, Chicago, owner and DJ, 1982-86; freelance DJ and recording artist, 1986-;.

Awards: Grammy Award for Remixer of the Year, Non-Classical, National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, 1997.

Addresses: Record company —DeFinity Records, 928 Broadway, Ste. 400, New York, NY 10010. Production company website —www.defmix.com.

Paradise Garage, when he was approached to take a resident DJ position at a new Chicago club. Levan was busy opening “the Garage,” as it is now famously referred to, but suggested Knuckles for the job. In March of 1977 Knuckles played the opening night of the Chicago dance club. Set in an abandoned, three-story factory building in the city’s desolate west-loop industrial area, the club was called The Warehouse.

The Warehouse was the place to be in Chicago for hip dance-music enthusiasts in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The building’s legal capacity was 600 people, but as many as 2,000 were in attendance on any given Saturday night to hear Knuckles’ blend of dance music. His New York style was new and fresh to the Chicago fans. New York DJs were the first to mix beats between records, creating one continuous flow of music, and also the first to add percussion to classic soul tracks, via a separate turntable, to make them hearty and dance-able. “When we first opened in ’78,” Knuckles is quoted as saying on the JahSonic website, “I was playing a lot of the East Coast records, the Philly stuff, Salsoul. By ’80-’81, when that stuff was all over with, I started working a lot of the soul that was coming out. I had to reconstruct the records to work for my dancefloor, to keep the dancefloor happy, as there was no dance music coming out! I’d take the existing songs, change the tempo, layer different bits of percussion over them, to make them more conducive for the dancefloor.”

The Warehouse crowd was mostly gay, almost completely black, and devotees of the weekly party, which cost four dollars and lasted into the wee hours of Sunday morning. “In the early days between ’77 and ’81, the parties were very intense. They were always intense, but the feeling that was going on then, I think was very pure. The energy, the feeling, the feedback that you got from the room, from the people in the room, was very, very spiritual.” Knuckles is quoted as saying on the Disco Museum website. One fan wrote on Disco Museum about Knuckles’ weekly parties: “The intensity of the atmosphere and the music made it a spiritual event. The crowd would be so worked up and all the heat from the bodies would literally cause the walls to ‘sweat.’ Watching [Knuckles] take the crowd up and down … totally intense stuff!”

Moved Into Recording Industry

Fueled largely by Knuckles’ success at the Warehouse, Chicago was becoming a hotbed of dance and house music, which was named so after the Warehouse. In 1982 Knuckles ended his pioneering reign at the Warehouse to open his own club, the Power Plant. The Power Plant was, like the Warehouse, located in an unexpected and questionable part of town, near the infamous Cabrini Green housing projects.

After more than a decade behind the turntables in dance clubs, Knuckles began to record tracks as well as play them. In 1983 a 12-inch single of his Warehouse classic “Let No Man Put Asunder” was released on the Salsoul label. The song went on to become a house classic. Knuckles continued his work in the recording studio producing and releasing tracks for the Chicago-based dance-music label Trax. He produced songs for local Chicago vocalists and wrote such tracks as “Beat The Knuckles,” “Baby Wants To Ride,” “Bad Boy,” “Cold World” and “Your Love,” which was a breakthrough hit for Chicago singer Jamie Principle. Because the city was renown worldwide as the birthplace of house, records by Chicago DJs were in hot demand. Knuckles released a hit with “You Can’t Hide” in 1986. Dance music and the Chicago club scene began to change in the mid-1980s, and Knuckles closed the Power Plant that same year.

The music Knuckles had generated in Chicago was beginning to take off around the world. In 1987 Knuckles returned home to New York City, widely acknowledged as one of the dance-music capitols of the world. Knuckles’ pioneering residency in Chicago sent him back to New York on a wave of popularity. He had no trouble securing gigs at the city’s hottest clubs, including the Roxy and Sound Factory. Knuckles, with David Morales, one of the biggest names in house music, founded the Def Mix music production company.

By the early 1990s, the popularity of dance music was such that big-name DJs could virtually name their own price in sold-out venues around the globe. Knuckles capitalized on the trend, becoming one of the highest-paid dance-music DJs in the world. He also became one of the most in-demand DJs in the recording studio.

He has remixed songs by such superstars as Janet Jackson, Diana Ross, Luther Vandross, Chaka Khan, En Vogue, and Michael Jackson, among more than two hundred others.

Released Full Length Albums

Expectations were high when Knuckles signed with Virgin Records, becoming one of the first DJs to sign to a major label. His subsequent 1991 full-length debut, Beyond The Mix, defied those expectations, however. House music fans were disappointed with the release, which shows Knuckles in a more eclectic light—the album is woven with pop and rap influences, rather than being a testament to pure house music. The single “The Whistle Song” became a number-one hit on the dance charts and was featured in a national advertising campaign for Lipton Iced Tea.

Knuckles released Welcome To The Real World in 1995, to critical success. Vocalist Adeva is a strong presence on the album’s vocals. Welcome To The Real World produced the 12 “singles “Whadda U Want (From Me)” which went to number three on the dance-music charts, and “Too Many Fish,” which went to number one. In 1997 Knuckles became the first DJ to win a Grammy Award for Remixer of the Year. Knuckles stayed off the music charts during the late 1990s, choosing instead to focus on remixing for other artists, rather than creating his own material. He played select, highbrow DJing gigs at the world’s hottest dance clubs.

Knuckles reemerged in 2000 with Choice: A Collection of Classic, a two-disc collection of Knuckles’ favorite tracks, remixed by him. He released 2001 Mardi Gras with Annabelle Gaspar the following year. His 2002 album, Motivation, was his first release of completely original tracks, rather than a remix album. Knuckles kicked off the nine-month, 2003 Def Mix 15th Anniversary tour in Sydney, Australia in February of 2003. Fans and those in the music industry consider Knuckles the Godfather of House, but, he told Billboard in 1991, “I was just playing good music. It really doesn’t matter who started this musical phenomenon, but that it is here.”